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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 


Shelf. 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 











io ckwtS. 


». 541 . 


GRACE DARNEL, 


BY MISS M. E. BRADDON. 


17 TO 27 VaNdeW/tei^ St 
^ewYof^K:* 




jyriglited 1885 by George Munro— Entered at the Post Office at j 


rork at second class rates— Sept, 1, 1885. 



THE 


New York Fireside Companion. 


Essenlially a Paper for tie Home Circle. 


PURE, BRIGHT AND INTERESTING. 


THE FIRESIDE COMPANION numbers among its contributors the best of 
living fiction writers. 

Its Detective Stories are the most absorbing ever published, and its spe- 
cialties are features peculiar to this journal. 


A Fashion Article, embracing the newest modes, prices, etc., by a noted 
modiste, is printed in every number. 

The Answers to Correspondents contain reliable information on every con- 
ceivable subject. 


TERMS:— The New York Fireside Companion will be sent for one year, 
on receipt of $3: two copies for $5. Getters-up of clubs can afterward add 
single copies at $2.50 each. We will be responsible for remittances sent in 
Registered Letters or by Post-office Money Orders. Postage free. Specimen 
copies sent free. 



P. 0. Box 375L 


17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York. 


\ 


CUT BY THE COUNTY 

OR, 

. GRACE DARNEL. 


MISS Mir’ e/ BEADDON. 



NEW YORK: 

GEORGE MUNRO, PUBLISHER, 

17 TO 27 Vandkwater Street. 


..-A . 


MISS M. E. nilAl) DON’S WOUKS 

COSTAIXED IN THE SE.*IDE LIBRARY (POCKET EDITION) : 


NO. PRICK. 

35 Lfidy Audloy’s Secret 20 

50 Pliiintom Forlinio 20 

74 Aurora Floyd 20 

no Under tlie Red Fln.ir 10 

153 The Golden ('alf . . .20 

204 Vixen 20 

211 The Octoroon ........ 10 

234 Barbara; or, Splendid INIisery .... 20 

263 An Tshmaelite 20 

315 The Mistletoe Bough. Edited by IMiss ]\[. E. Brnddon 20 
434 AVyllard’s Weird ... .... 20 

478 Diavola; or. Nobody's Daughter. Part I . . 20 

478 Diavola; or, Nobody's Daughter. Part 11 . . 20 

480 iMarried in Haste. Edited by l\liss M. E. Braddon . 20 

487 Put to the Test. Edited by .Mi.ss M. E. Braddon . 20 

488 Joshua Haggard's Daughter . . "j. . . 20 

489 Bupert Godwin 20 

495 IMount Royal 20 

496 Dnh" a AVoman. Editi'd by Miss 1\I. E. Braddon . 20 

497 The Lad\^'s Alile . 20 

498 Only a Clod 20 

499 The Cloven Foot . 20 

511 A Strange World 20 

515 Sir Jasper's Tenant 20 

544 Cut by the County; or, Grace Darnel . -. . . \ ' 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


CHAPTER 1. 

UNDER A CLOUD. 

An English landscape. It seemed to Weldon Stukely 
that he had seen nothing so beautiful for the last seven 
years; and yet he had been where nature has lavished her 
richest coloring, her grandest forms. He had been a so- 
journer in the ancient world, the cradle of civilization, of 
religion, language, science, art, poetry, and war — the im- 
memorial East — from which antique Greece, with ail her 
glory, was but an offshoot. He had been a traveler in the 
Himalayas, had looked upward at the unapproachable 
summit of Mount Everest. And now as the little hired 
landeau from Scadleigh Station came round a curve in a 
wooded road, and the village green with its pond and herd 
of lazy kine drinking, breast-deep, in the shining water, 
its old inn, and horse-trough, and sign-post, and three 
fine elms spreading their broad shadows on the patch of 
grass between the porch and the highway, and the labor- 
ers in their russet-brown frocks lounging on the stout 
oaken bench in front of the rough-cast wall — it seemed to 
the returning traveler as if this simple rustic English 
landscape, thjs little picture of homely village life, sur- 
passed all the loveliness of the tropics. . And yet it was 
such a commonplace scene— a scene we al] know, which 
needs perhaps the glamour of a summer sunset, the feeling 
of eventide repose, to make it beautiful. 

‘‘ Thank God for England,” said Colonel Stukely, as he 
looked at the village green. - 

While he was looking back at it the fly drove in at the 
gates of Darnel Park, and a large matron was courtesy! ng 
and smiling at him at the gate of her tiny lodge garden, 
a garden so crammed with flowers as to leave no room for 
the sole of a foot. 


4 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


'^How d’ye do, Mrs. Drabble?” said the colonel heartily 
as to an old friend. As young as ever, but not any 
thinner, I see.” 

Mrs. Drabble laughed and shook her head. She had 
been a slim slip of a girl once upon a time, but it was so 
long ago that she had forgotten the sensation. 

Darnel Park was one of those places which leave within 
the mind an impression of perfect beauty, especially when 
seen for the first time in the summer sunset. It was full 
of fine old timber, and had all those undulations and in- 
equalities of surface which make a domain picturesque. 
The house was as^old as Sir Christopher Wren, a delightful 
age for a country gentleman’s mansion, as it allows of 
lofty ceilings, spacious rooms, plenteous light and air. 
Fine old oaks and beeches dotted the broad sweeps of 
grass, plantations of larch and Douglas fir sheltered the 
park from the outer world ; while on one side of the house 
there was a wide expanse of broken ground, a region of 
deep hollows and craggy banks, mighty thickets of rho- 
dodendron and azalia, which Colonel Stukely called the 
Jungle. 

He was an expected guest at Darnel, but he had arrived 
by an earlier train than that by which he was supposed to 
travel; hence the hired fly; and hence also the fact that on 
alighting at the hall door he was told apologetically by 
-Purden, the old butler, that Sir Allan and Lady Darnel 
had not yet returned from their drive. 

- There was a flower-show at Walton, colonel, and Sir 
George and my lady were obliged to be present. Your 
rooms are ready, colonel. Shall I show you to them at 
once, or would you like to see Miss Darnel first? She is 
in the morning-room expecting you.” 

Miss Darnel,” cried the colonel, eagerly, Miss Grace, 
you mean?” 

‘‘ No, sir. Miss Darnel; Sir Allan’s sister, colonel. I 
believe from a strict point of view,” added the butler, 
gravely, deliberately, apologetically, our own young lady 
is Miss Darnel, but Sir Allan’s sister would never give in 
.to it. I should never have the pluck to allude to her as 
Miss Dora.” 

Purden was an old military servant of Sir Allan’s. He 
had known the colonel when Stukely and Darnel were 
brother officers, and felt himself privileged to chatter. 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


5 


Oh,” said the colonel, Sir Allan’s sister is in the 
morning-room,” as if the reminder of that lady’s exist- 
ence came upon him somewhat like a shock. Yes, I 
will go and see Miss Darnel before I go to my room. My 
man will bring my portmanteau on presently. I was in 
too great a hurry to wait for him.” 

He followed Piirden along the corridor and into one of 
those gracious, home-like interiors which are the slow 
growth of generations, paneled walls mellowed by time; 
old Sherraton furniture; old Indian china; flowers in pro- 
fusion; and on a scarlet Japanese table by the window an 
old-fashioned mahogany tea-tray, with brass handles, a 
George II. teapot, and cups and saucers fresh from the 
royal factory at Worcester. Beside the tea-table, with her 
face toward the door, smiling, expectant, sat a lady whose 
aspect was certainly not calculated to repel or to alarm 
any man. 

She was a little woman, fragile, gracefully fashioned, 
with a small face, delicately tinted, light brown hair and 
dark brown eyes — fine eyes, penetrating, just a little im- 
perious, the distinguishing feature in a face which might 
otherwise have been insignificant. She was daintily dressed 
in a pale gray gown of some soft gauzy material, the low 
tints of which harmonized exquisitely with her delicate 
complexion. Colonel Stukely knew that she was eight- 
and-thirty; but a stranger would as easily have believed that 
slie was only eight-and-twenty. Happy result of having 
taken the utmost care of one’s self under all the varied cir- 
cumstances and agitations of life. 

She welcomed tlie traveler with a gentle cordiality, a 
little touch of suppressed emotion, whioli ought to have 
been delightful to any man. But the colonel was not 
enthusiastic. He had thanked God for the English land- 
scape just now; but he had not the air of thanking God 
for Dora Darnel. He seated himself in the low reposeful 
chair she suggested to him, he took the offered cup of tea 
from her hand, but he was not demonstrative of delight in 
their meeting. 

I dare say you are rather surprised to find me here, 
en permanence/^ she said, after Allan’s marriage.” 

The colonel looked embarrassed for a moment or so; 
and then his natural gallantry came to his aid. 

I am ^surprised to find you still Miss Darnel, Our 


6 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


unworthy sex has been singularly blind to its own best in- 
terests.” 

Your sex has not been neglectful of my claims, 
colonel,” answered the lady, laughing. I have had op- 
portunities of changing the name of Darnel — which I 
honor — for other names for which I do not care a straw. 
But I am not one of that silly herd of women who marry 
because they would rather be called Mi's. than Miss, who 
want a house of their own, forsooth, which is only another 
word for a burden of their own, a grinding care that 
shortens the lives of half the women in England. I am 
always angry when a girl, newly engaged to a man with 
nothing a year, talks to me of the delight of her having a 
house of her own. No, I am too contented with my fate 
as Dora Darnel ever to wish to change that name for an- 
other.” 

am so glad,” the colonel blurted out unawares, for 
he had been troubled seven years with a lurking suspicion 
that Miss Darnel meant to marry him. I am so really 
glad you appreciate Allan’s fine character, and that you 
are happy under his roof. It assures me upon one rather 
delicate point, namely, that you and the new wife get on 
nicely together.” 

Dora Darnel’s face hardened for a moment, and then 
grew placid again. She had a sweet smile, a very sweet 
smile; but it was an idea of some physiognomists that the 
smile was too deliberately sweet to be quite genuine. 

Lady Darnel and I get on admirably,” she said. 
She found me the mistress of this house, possessing my 
brother’s entire confidence as administrator of all house- 
hold affairs, ami, finding that everything went as if by 
machinery, she was good enough — ” 

Not to oust the engineer. She showed herself wise 
as well as amiable by taking that line,” interrupted the 
colonel, retui-ning his cup for a second supply. 

‘‘ She certainly acted with discretion,” returned Dora, 
for I do not think the poor thing had ever seen the in- 
side of a well-appointed house before she came to Dar- 
nel.” ^ 

‘^That’s rather rough on her,” said the colonel. ^‘Do 
you mean to say that your brother has married a person 
who is — well — not quite a lady?” 

‘^1 do not go so far as that, Colonel Stukely; but my 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


7 


brother has married a woman of Yery charming manners, 
wliose antecedents are a profound mystery to me and all 
onr little world in Wiltshire.” 

The colonel looked grave, distressed even. His old 
friend had been reticent about all the details of his new 
alliance — had only told his comrade that he had married 
one of the noblest of women, and that he was utterly 
happy in his marriage. That might mean anything or 
nothing. Every man thinks the woman of his choice the 
noblest of women, more especially if she is under a cloud 
when he marries her. Every man is utterly happy in his 
marriage for the first six months. So argued that old 
soldier, Weldon Stukely. 

Ho you mean that Lady Darnel is not — received?” he 
gasped, after a pause. 

She is received, but she is not liked,” answered Dora, 
leaning her pretty chin on her tapering hand, and look- 
ing the image of disinterested consideration. ‘‘People 
are cold. You know what county people are — how sus- 
picious of any one outside their own set, any one not reared 
on their own soil, whose life they have not known from 
the cradle. People have been told absolutely nothing 
about Lady Darnel. AVe do not know who her own 
people are, or who her husband’s people were. She ap- 
pears to be an isolated person, without a relative or a 
friend — Clare, widow of Captain Stuart; no regiment; no 
locality; nothing to identify that one particular Stuart 
among the multitude that bear the name. That was all 
the advertisement of her marriage told the county; that is 
all I, Allan’s sister, have ever been told about his wife. 
Can you wonder that the county people do not take to 
her?” 

“I can wonder at their stupidity if Lady Darnel is half 
as charming as I imagine her to be,” protested the colonel, 
warmly. 

“ She is very charming. Perhaps if she was less at- 
tractive people would be less curious, less inclined to sus- 
pect evil. So handsome a woman ought to be able to 
reveal her antecedents, or else — ” 

“ She is your brother’s wife. Miss Darnel. You at 
least ought to respect her,” said the colonel, waxing 
angry. 

“My dear colonel, why fly into a passion?” exclaimed 


8 


CUT BY THE COUXTY. 


Dora, innocently. You have have asked me questions, as 
an old friend ofmy brother’s, and I have answered them 
frankly. Another time I shall know how to be diplo- 
matic.” 

There is one fact I gather from your answers, and 
that is that you are at one mind with the county in not 
liking Lady Darnel.” 

^‘Was there ever such a man for jumping at conclu- 
sions?” said Dora. ‘^If this is the way you Indian officers 
treat your sepoys no wonder they sometimes mutiny. 
Pray, have I said that I don’t like Lady Darnel?” 

Well, perhaps not in so many words. Suppose we 
change the subject, and you tell me about my little Gracie, 
my god-daughter and plaything? I hope I am to see her 
this evening.” 

I expect her every minute. There is a tennis tourna- 
ment at the Vicarage, and she is one of their best players 
— could not possibly be dispensed with — or she would have 
been at home to welcome her god-father. You will find 
her very much improved, I think.” 

Not improved out of her own self, I hope. My dear 
little Kobin Goodfellow in petticoats — the wildest, mer- 
riest lass, and the pluckiest little horsewoman in Wilt- 
shire! Don’t tell me that you have made a regulation 
young lady of her.” 

We have done our best to make her a lady, colonel, 
however you may disapprove of the transformation. She 
ran wild at Darnel for a year after Allan’s marriage. 
Lady Darnel was ridiculously indulgent, quite the cleverest 
policy in a step-mother. She let the girl do just what she 
liked, and Grace would have become the scandal of the 
neighborhood for her free and easy manners and want of 
cultivation if I had not interfered.” 

Oh,” said the colonel, you interfered, did you?” 

It was my duty, as Grace’s nearest female relative. 
At my suggestion my brother took her to Madame Sartori’s 
finishing school at Passy. It is hardly to be called a school. 
Madame Sartori is a most accomplished person, who takes 
a few pupils — a chosen few. Only girls of good family are 
received, and they are trained under madame’s own eye. 
I was educated by her myself, and I can vouch for her care 
and vigilance. 

Poor Gracie! I can fancy her under Madame Sartori’s 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


9 


vigilant eye. A wild wood-flower imprisoned in a War- 
dian case. I can imagine Madame Sartori — elderly, snuffy, 
suspicious. Poor Gracie! And how long was she sub- 
jected to the Sartorian process?’’ 

She spent two years in Paris, with occasional holidays 
at home. The result is eminently satisfactory to Sir 
Allan.” 

And are Grace and her step-mother still good friends?” 

They are — or pretend to be — intensely fond of each 
other.” 

‘‘ I can not imagine Grace pretending anything, unless 
Madame Sartori’s process has made her a new creature.” 

“Madame Sartori has transformed a hoyden into a 
young lady.” 

“Oh, what a pity,” sighed the colonel. “England, 
swarms with young ladies; but your true hoyden is a rare 
growth, a plant that can only flourish in the genial soil of 
a happy home, a gracious flower that withers under the 
breath of the school-mistress. I am heartily sorry you 
ever sent my Gracie to school. I hate girls’ schools.” 

“ Madame Sartori’s could hardly be called a school,” re- 
peated Miss Darnel. “ I was under her care myself, and I 
ought to know the value of her training.” 

Colonel Stukely looked at the speaker curiously. Yes, 
she was undoubtedly the outcome of the carefulest train- 
ing — moved, spoke, smiled by rule. Could enter or leave 
a room gracefully. Had no awkward tricks of speech or 
deportment. Played a little, sung a little, danced ele- 
gantly, spoke French and Italian with perfect intonation, 
a precision in all things. 

“ Trained too fine,” thought the colonel. 

Just then a light, swift figure flitted across the lawn, and. 
bounded in at the window, a figure all in white, soft white 
woolen stuff, bordered with pale blue, the most charming 
thing in tennis frocks. This was Grace Darnel, a tali slip 
of a girl, with sunny, hazel eyes and rippling auburn hair, 
lovely mouth, and perfect teeth; other features inoffen- 
sive; a true English type. 

“ Gracie,” said the colonel, after he had taken both her 
hands, and shaken them heartily for a minute or so, con- 
templating the fair young face with fatherly affection, 
“ Gracie, they tell me you have grown into a young lady, 
and that my little Kobin Goodfellow is gone.” 


10 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


Then they have not told yon tlie truth, godfather. I 
shall always lie Eobin Goodfellow for yon/’ answered the 
girl, smiling at him. 

And then after a little pause she said: 

I am so glad you are come home, more glad than I 
can tell you.” 

She said this with an earnestness which half suggested 
some hidden meaning. The colonel looked at her scruti- 
nizingly with his keen, kind eyes — eyes that had looked 
just as steadily in the face of mutiny and murder in the 
days that were gone. 

Miss Darnel had glided from the room, and they too 
were alone together. 

Why, Grace, that sounds as if you were not quite 
happy,” he said, anxiously. 

‘‘Who is quite happy in this world?” retorted Grace, 
with a touch of petulance. “It is an impossible condi- 
tion. We are told in church every Sunday that vve are not 
intended to be happy — though why we should be born for 
the express purpose of being miserable is more than I am 
able to understand. But I am very happy at having you 
back again, godfather. There is no alloy to that gold.” 

“ My dearest child, do you not suppose that I am just 
as glad to return? And now tell me everything, Ke- 
member what changes have taken place since Hast saw 
Darnel, and that I come back to you a stranger in knowl- 
edge of your domestic affairs, though no stranger in feel- 
ing. Tell me about the step-mother.” 

“ Hush, godfather, we never use the qualification step 
before the word mother. I call Lady Darnel my mother, 
and by no other name. She is the first woman who ever 
gave me a mother’s love. You know that my own dear 
mother died when I was a baby, and that I have only her 
picture to love. There is no disloyalty to her in being 
fond of my new mother.” 

“ Then Lady Darnel is nice; that is a grand point.” 

“Lady Darnel is simply perfect as wife and mother; 
and before you have been in this house twenty-four hours 
you will be over head and ears in love with her. Father 
won’t be angry. He is too proud of seeing her admired.” 

“ I am charmed to hear such an account; and yet Miss 
Darnel spoke of her just now with a certain reservation.” 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 11 

When did you ever hear Aunt Dora speak of any one 
or anything without a certain reservation?” 

‘‘But, Grade, with sudi a mother, and sudi a father, 
you ought to be supremely happy.” 

Grace blushed, and looked up at him shyly. 

“Don’t you know, colonel, that there comes a time in 
every girl’s life, when even father and mother are not 
quite all the world to her?” 

“ I understand,” said Weldon Stukely. “There is a 
lover in the case.” 

The very sound of the word, blurted out point-blank in 
the soldier’s hearty voice, seemed to appal Grace Darnel. 
She glanced at the window. 

“ Not one word, not one breath,” she whispered, clasp- 
ing her hands entreatingly. “It is a secret. Nobody 
knows. My father would never forgive — Hark! there 
is the carriage, and I must rush off to dress for dinner.” 

She was gone before he could say another word. He 
went out after her, and met Sir Allan and his wife in the 
hall. 

Sir Allan had retired from the army ten years ago, upon 
the death of his father, from whom he inherited Darnel 
Manor and half a dozen of the best farms in the Vale of 
the White Horse. He had retired invalided, and he was 
slightly lame even now from the effects of a bullet in 
Cabul. Weldon Stukely and he had been together at 
Eton, as brother officers had fought side by side in the 
Crimea, and had borne the heat and burden of the Indian 
mutiny. They had been comrades and friends in the 
golden days of youth, and they loved each other like 
brothers. Their meeting was full of quiet tenderness, un- 
demonstrative, as became two Englishmen. 

“Weldon, my wife,” said Sir Allan, and the colonel 
turned to greet Lady Darnel. 

She was a beautiful woman, in the prime of woman- 
hood, just eleven years Sir Allan’s junior. The tall, 
graceful figure, the finely cut features, low broad brow, 
and dark-gray eyes, had a look of quiet dignity which well 
became the mistress of Darnel Manor. Not a woman this 
for the county to cut, thought Welden Stukely. Not a 
woman to awaken • suspicion in the minds of the most 
punctilious of village rectors, or the most prejudiced of 


12 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


squires. She looked like a woman born to command 
homage, to inspire affection; an ideal wife and mother. 

She was simply dressed; more plainly than women of her 
station are wont to dress upon public occasions; but tlie 
finely molded figure, the beautiful face, gave importance 
to the black foulard gown and neat little black chip bon- 
net. People at Darnel had an idea that everything Lady 
Darnel wore came direct from Paris, and that this simple 
attire of hers was more costly than other people’s finery. 

‘‘Catch a woman of that stamp saving her husband’s 
money,” they said to each other, over their afternoon tea- 
cups. 

Nobody had ever explained what particular stamp or 
character of person was meant by this vague phrase; but 
it was an understood thing that Sir Allan Darnel had 
married a nobody, and that it was in the nature of things 
he should come to rue his marriage. The county had not 
been taken into Sir Allan’s confidence when he married; 
the favors of the county had not been solicited for the 
new firm; and the county therefore was of one opinion, 
expressed freely among the feminine portion of the com- 
munity. 

“There is evidently something,” said the county. 

“ It will all come out before long,” said the county. 

Every one was sorry — laboriously sorry — for Sir Allan; 
all the more so because Sir Allan persisted in not being 
sorry for himself. He went up and down the village 
beaming with content. His voice was the cheeriest in the 
hunting-field. He was in excellent spirits at Quarter Ses- 
sions, and inclined to let offenders off lightly, from very 
joyousness of heart. 

“ Why should we be hard upon these poor devils?” he 
would plead. “ Their lives are so miserable, and ours are 
so happy.” 

“ There will be some painful scenes at the Manor before 
we are many years older,” said the county. “Poor Sir 
Allan is an absolute fool; and a wife of that kind 'will 
naturally take advantage of such a husband’s weak in- 
dulgence.” 

“I am told that Mason charges five-and-thirty pounds 
for a foulard gown like that she wore on Tuesday,” said 
the Dowager Lady Brumpus. 

The foulard gown was made by a little dressmaker in 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


13 


Pimlico, who had worked for Lady Darnel when she was 
Mrs. Stuart; but the county had its own sources of infor- 
mation, which were almost always false. 

^MVelcome to the Manor,’’ said Sir Allan’s wife, with 
her hand in the colonel’s. I hope you are going to stay 
with us for a long time.” 

I hope he is going to stay with us till he finds a snug 
little place of his own within a couple of miles, and that 
he will settle down there for the rest of his life,” said Sir 
Allan. 

In one of his latest letters the colonel had talked of 
wanting to buy a place near his friend’s. His period of 
service was over, had been extended to the uttermost limit 
by especial privilege; but that limit was past, and the 
stalwart soldier, in the prime of manhood, had to lay aside 
his sword, or turn it into a plowshare. 

‘‘ Yes, Allan, I mean to settle near you, if I can, and to 
look after my goddaughter. That is about the only busi- 
ness I can find in life henceforward.” 

‘‘Unless you follow my example,” said Sir Allan, 
cheerily. 

Lady Darnel had left them. Sir Allan conducted his 
old chum to the rooms that had been prepared for him — 
bedroom, dressing-room, and study — three of the prettiest 
rooms in the spacious old house; a study with a bow 
window overlooking the pastoral side of the park, where 
Lady Darnel’s particular herd of Jersey cows browsed 
peacefully in the low western light, fetlock deep in the 
rich grasses of late summer. The bow window had been 
broken out thirty years before, and was considered a blot, 
from an architectural point of view; but it made that 
cozy little study the nicest room in the house. 


CHAPTER II. 

THE SECRET OF HER UKHA.PPIHESS. 

It was seven o’clock when Sir Allan left his guest, and 
the colonel had an hour in which to dress for dinner in a 
leisurely way that gave him full scope for meditation. 
Naturally it was of his friend and his friend’s wife that 
he thought. 

“ She is very handsome,” he told himself, and she is 


14 


OUT BY THE COUNTY. 


a good woman. I would stake my life that she is true aji 
steel. But she is not liappy. There is the rub. There 
is a mystery. I don’t wonder the county people talk. A 
woman in Lady Darnel’s position — with such a husband 
as Allan— and such Jersey cows — ” his glance wandering 
involuntarily to the fawn -colored, black -muzzled herd in 
the pastures yonder — ^^a woman in Lady Darnel’s position 
ought to bo happy; and if she is not, well, if she is not, 
there is a reason.” 

He recalled that calm, finely cut face, its proud repose, 
its look of serious thought. No, and again no, it was not. 
the countenance of a happy woman. Allan might rejoice 
in his destiny, might deem himself blessed among men; 
but there was a secret canker gnawing the heart of Allan’s 
wife. 

. ^‘Stuart?” muttered the colonel presently. Widow 
of Captain Stuart? What Stuart, I wonder?” 

And then he began to recall the men of that name 
whom he had known in the service. They were numerous; 
but he could remember none of them likely to have left a 
beautiful widow. And why had not her husband’s regi- 
ment been mentioned in the advertisement? There 
must be some screw loose,” said the colonel. 

He found the three ladies and his old chum in the 
drawing-room when he went down; no one else. 

“ I would not have anybody asked for to-night, Wel- 
don,” said Sir Allan; for I knew that you and I would 
want to talk; and it’s hard lines for other men to sit by 
while a couple of Anglo-Indian fogeys go over their old 
stories together.” 

Dinner was announced almost immediately. The 
colonel took Lady Darnel to the dining-room, and sat be- 
tween her and Grace, while Miss Darnel occupied the other 
side of the snug oval table in solitude. Sir Allan and his 
daughter were in high spirits, full of old reminiscences, 
hunting and horses, Grace’s ponies and Grace’s dogs, 
which seemed to be legion; the old men and women who 
had died since the colonel went back to India; the changes 
in the village, the new school- house. 

‘^Talking of schools, how is it you have not told me any- 
thing about Paris and your experiences there?” said the 
colonel. ^‘It must have been a tremendous change from 
Darnel to the Bois de Boulogne.” 


CUT BY THE COUiJTY. • 15 

Grace blushed furiously, and was silent for a moment or 
two. 

^^Did you like Passy and your French schoolmistress?’’ 
asked the colonel. 

I detested being sent there,” replied Grace, flashing 
an angry glance at her aunt, whom she had never forgiven 
for that act of interference, which had in somewise changed 
the girl’s destiny, and I saw no reason why I should be 
sent to school ut my age. But I got to like the place 
pretty well afterward. Madame Sartori is a silly old 
woman; but she did not ill-treat us, or interfere with us 
much. Her house was liberty Hall. And I was sent there 
to be drilled and trained as if it had been a reformatory. 
That was a capital joke.” 

She laughed a bitter little laugh, and her voice had a 
hard tone which Colonel Stukely did not like. Was this 
his sweet igenuous Gracie, the girl who was the soul of 
simplicity and truth? He felt that there was a change — 
an evil change — wrought by that accursed Parisian school. 
He had always hated Paris; he had always hated girls’ 
schools. If Heaven had given him daughters, he would 
have let them grow up in the meadows, like those Jersey 
cows — in the hunting-field — on the river. He would have 
had them taught reading and writing, perhaps, in the 
winter evenings. No more. He would at any rate have 
reared a healthy brood. 

In my time, Madame Sartori was quite the most per- 
fect person in her ways with girls,” said Dora Darnel. 

Ah, but your time was so very long ago. Aunt Dora,” 
answered Grace. There has been time for Maman Sar- 
tori to outlivo^all her gifts since then.” 

Nor in my time did any one ever think of calling her 
Maman Sartori.” 

‘‘Ah, girls w^ere so dull and prim twenty years ago,” 
retorted Grace. “ Youth has only learned to lived during 
the last decade. American girls have taught us our 
rights, and how to enjoy them.” 

“ Gracie!” exclaimed her father, with a reproachful 
look; “you are not talking like my daughter.” 

“ I beg your pardon, father,” the girl answered, hastily, 
“but I always feel mad when people talk to me about 
that horrid villa at Passy — with its stucco gentility — and 
its sham of all kinds.” 


16 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


Then I am the offender,” said the colonel, for it 
was I who started the subject. I shall be wiser in fut- 
ure.” 

You were not prepared for the effects of American 
emancipation,” remarked Dora, in her soft girlish voice, 
a voice that had never been heard raised in anger witliiii 
the memory of anybody at Darnel Manor; and yet that 
dove-like murmur was associated with some of the 
bitterest speeches that had ever been spoken at Darnel. 

Lady Darnel came to the rescue, and turned the con- 
versation into a new channel by questioning the colonel 
about his last campaign; whereupon the talic became 
animated again, and went on pleasantly till the ladies 
withdrew, and the two old friends were sitting opposite 
each other alone in the lamplight. 

‘'Light your cheroot, Weldon. I suppose you stick to 
Colonel Newcome’s old weed — or will you have one of 
my cigarettes?” inquired Sir Allan, offering his exqui- 
sitely embroidered case, the sort of thing with which a 
man like Allan Darnel is provided to satiety by his woman- 
kind. 

“And now, dear old fellow, tell me frankly, how do 
you like her?” 

“ Thank God, I can afford to be frank. To see Lady 
Darnel, for the first time even, is to like and admire her. 
She is beautiful, she is charming, she is all that I should 
wish my old friend’s wife to be — only — ” 

“ Only what, Weldon? You have discovered a draw- 
back?” 

“ Not to Lady Darnel’s merits. But it struck me that 
her health and spirits are not quite so good as you and 
her friends would wish.” 

“You are right. No, my poor Clare is not in robust 
health. There is something — a depression— a nervous 
excitability sometimes. I doubt if Darnel Manor agrees 
with her. Me have lived here too exclusively, perhaps, 
since our marriage. I have been thinking seriously of 
taking her to Italy for the winter. No, her spirits are too 
variable for good health, or for ease of mind. But there 
are reasons — cruel memories of the past which in a meas- 
ure account for this. I have not yet told you the story 
of my marriage, Weldon.” 

“ You told me very little; only that your marriage was 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 17 

a love match, and that you were supremely happy. That 
was enough to satisfy your friend.’’ 

But 1 should have told you a great deal more if it had 
not been for my aversion to letter writing. It was a long- 
ish story to write, and a painful one; so I thought it 
would be easier to tell you all about it when you and I 
were smoking our cigarettes face to face, as we are to- 
night.” 

‘‘ Don’t tell me one word if there is a shade of pain in 
the recital,” said the colonel, earnestly. I am content 
to know that Lady Darnel is a good and beautiful woman. 
I desire to know nothing beyond that.” 

My dear fellow, it will be a relief to talk to you. I 
want you to appreciate Clare, and to understand her; and 
you can only do that when you know her sad story.” 

The colonel bowed, filled his glass with Leoville. 

^‘Do you remember hearing, eleven or twelve years ago, 
of an officer in the 19th Afghanistans, a man called Mac- 
kenzie?” 

The man who shot the sentry? Certainly I remem- 
ber hearing of him. Everybody heard of him — a terrible 
case.” 

The man who shot the sentry was my wife’s first hus- 
band.” 

‘‘ Good heavens!” 

Yes; he was her first cousin, Stuart Mackenzie, a 
man who began life brilliantly, who was a celebrity in his 
way for two or three seasons as one of the handsomest 
young men in London. Perhaps that spoiled him. His 
father died before he was of age, and he succeeded to a 
handsome fortune, which he began to squander directly 
it came into his possession. Clare’s mother was a widow, 
a woman of the world, had been a beauty, lived only for 
society, and cared very little for her daughter. I have 
gathered as much as this from Clare’s reluctant admis- 
sions rather than from actual statement, as she has been 
loth to cast the faintest reproach upon her dead mother.” 

I know the kind of woman,” said Stukely; “ not by 
any means an uncommon type.” 

Clare was only seventeen, and had not yet been in- 
troduced into society, wore school-girl frocks, practiced 
Beethoven, and read" Schiller with a good old governess, 
while her mother went to parties. They spent the London 


18 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


season in a West End lodging, and lived for the rest of the 
year at Torquay, where Mrs. Molyneaux, Clare’s mother, 
had a house of her own. The widow’s means were limited, 
and just sufficed for this kind of life; and I dare say she 
looked forward with dread to the expense of launching a 
pretty daughter, still more perhaps to the idea of being 
outshone and aged by the daughter’s appearance. Any- 
how, she kept Clare very close; and when Stuart Macken- 
zie proposed for his cousin, Mrs. Molyneaux received him 
with open arms, and forced on the marriage with all the 
strength of a mother’s influence. Clare, who was at first 
reluctant, was gradually persuaded to think herself very 
fond of her cousin. He and she had been playfellows in 
her childhood, and she had liked him very well then. It 
was flattering to think that one of the handsomest young 
men in London was over head and ears in love with her. 
The idea of immediate escape from the governess, the 
German poets, and the dullness of London lodgings was 
pleasanter still. The prospect of a voyage to India was 
sheer enchantment. The girl gave way. The marriage 
was hurried on, as the Afghanistans were under sailing 
orders within six weeks. Clare spent her honey-moon in 
Italy, and sailed with her husband from Trieste in a great 
troopship a fortnight after her wedding-day, and six 
months before her eighteenth birthday.” 

Poor child!” 

The life in India was gay and bright enough at the 
first. There had been rumors of war, but nothing came of 
those rumors. India was supremely quiet in that long lull 
which followed the suppression of the mutiny. Gradual- 
ly, slowly, the sickening truth dawned upon my poor 
Clare. She had married a profligate, a spendthrift, and a 
gamester. She shrinks with horror from all memories of 
that hateful life; yet there have been times when it has 
seemed a relief to her to talk to me about those days, when 
the overburdened mind has thrown off some part of its 
load; and at such times I have encouraged her confidences. 
Her husband was one of the most popular men in India, 
from a social standpoint, during those first few years. He 
was brilliant, fascinating, clever, open-handed; but he was 
a thoroughly bad man all the same, and his wife was the 
chief sufferer by his vices. Then came a change. In- 
temperate habits told their usual tale. He grew nervous, 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


19 


excitable, short-tempered, most of all when he had been 
unlucky at play; and play was his niglitly amusement. 
He became very unpopular with his brother officers, and 
the feeling of the mess at last came to a point which ren- 
dered an exchange inevitable. Mackenzie exchanged from 
the famous Afghanistans into a line regiment quartered in 
the south of Ireland.” 

A dreary change, I should think,” said Stukely, whose 
happiest years had been spent under an Indian sun, to 
whom the ways of Indian life were the familiar ways, and 
those of Britain strange. 

‘‘A change that wrecked him forever. In India, there 
were some restraining influences — caste, society, the 
knowledge that the eyes of great men were upon him; but 
in that shabby little Irish town there were none. He 
sunk into a dull apathy — abandoned every ambition of an 
honorable man — sulked with his wife — was foolishly in- 
dulgent one day, brutally harsh the next, to their only 
child, a boy of seven, and the wife’s solitary consolation. 
He had spent nearly all his money. He had thrown away 
all his chances of advancement. He knew this: and the 
very knowledge that he was a ruined man made him reck- 
less. He drank to drown care — drank till his brain grew 
soddened and dull — drank until delirium tremens became 
a chronic malady. Oh, the horror of those days, as Clare 
describes them. The ever recurring evil, which she 
dreaded in every hour of her life. She was his nurse 
when he was ill. She screened him — she apologized for. 
him — she enabled him to keep his position years after his 
own folly would have forfeited it. They went from sta- 
tion to station — now at home, now abroad — and it was on 
their return to that dull old town in*the South of Ireland 
that the catastrophe occurred which gave Stuart Mac- 
kenzie’s name a criminal notoriety.” 

I remember. It was at Mallow the murder occurred.” 

^^The crime was hardly to be called a murder, for the 
wretch was mad when it happened. He had been laid up 
for a week with an attack of delirium tremens, which was 
a little worse than any previous experience in the same 
line. His orderly was a good fellow, young, stalwart, 
plucky, and Clare and the orderly contrived between 
them to nurse him and to keep everything dark, though 
his paroxysms were at times so violent as to need all the 


20 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


orderly’s strength and all Clare’s courage to grapple with 
him. Things went on like this for a week, by which 
time both servant and mistress were fairly worn out, 
while there were no signs of improvement in the patient. 
The doctor knew what the complaint was, but did not 
know half the violence of the attack, so careful was Clare 
to conceal tlie worst symptoms — a mistake, as she discov- 
ered afterward.” 

^^1 can understand that look in Lady Darnel’s face 
now,” said the colonel, meditatively; ‘‘ the look of a 
woman who has suffered intensely in years gone by, and 
who can never quite forget the old wounds.” 

Perhaps neither Clare nor the servant knew how 
utterly exhausted they both were by what they had done 
and gone through in that dreadful week, for when Clare 
left the man on guard one night, and went to her room 
for a few hours’ rest, she had perfect confidence in his 
watchfulness. The poor fellow dropped asleep at his post. 
It was a moonlight night in summer, and Mackenzie’s 
window opened on to a balcony. The trooper had locked 
the door, and put the key in his pocket. But to a man of 
Mackenzie’s athletic training the descent from that first 
floor balcony was nothing. He saw his keeper asleep, 
saw himself un watched for the first time since his malady 
had come upon him, and, delighted at the idea of free- 
dom, he got up, dressed himself hastily in trousers and 
shooting-jacket, scaled the balcony, and made for the 
gates of the barracks. At the gate he was challenged by 
a sentinel, who did not recognize him. Mackenzie did 
not answer the challenge, and the soldier tried to stop 
him. He wrenched the gun out of the sentinel’s hands, 
and shot him through the head. The sound of the shot 
in the silence of the night awakened the men in the quar- 
ters nearest the gate. There was an alarm, and the sentry 
was found dead in front of his box. Mackenzie was not 
found till late on the following afternoon, when he was 
discovered hiding in a wood five or six miles from the bar- 
racks, with the sentry’s gun in his hand — stark mad. 
There was a trial, which resulted in Captain Mackenzie’s 
detention during her Majesty’s pleasure; but he only 
lived a little more than a year after his transference to the 
county asylum, where Clare visited him every week. He 
never recovered from that shock, and the exposure of that 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


21 


night. He sunk into a state of melancholy madness in 
which his nights were haunted by horrible dreams — always 
acting over again that struggle for the gun with the sentry 
— always shooting him and seeing him fall, shot through 
the brain — not one sentry but a hundred sentries — till ho 
woke in an agony, steeped in cold sweat which he mistook 
for blood. He used to tell Clare these dreams — with an 
awfully graphic power which tortured her. He became 
singularly mild in those days— driveling and imbecile in 
his lunacy, save when he was excited by the thought of 
those nightly visions. Clare asked his keeper if he had 
these dreadful dreams every night, and the man told her 
he had never known a night go by without his being 
awakened by that cry of horror — ^ the sentry!’ Death 
came at last, by inches, a gradual extinction of mind and 
body. Dissolution in its most painful form.” 

‘‘ What a martyrdom for a wife!” 

Yes, a veritable martyrdom; but her sorrows were not 
over. She was left poorly off, with one child, her boy, 
her comfort and consolation in the earlier years of his life, 
but already, at eight years old, a trouble and anxiety. 
The child was rebellious, difficult, fitful, alarmingly like 
his father in person and disposition. Clare’s mother was 
dead, and she stood alone in the world. She dropped the 
name of Mackenzie, and called herself Stuart. She went 
to a quiet little inland watering-place in Mid-Wales, and 
devoted herself to her boy, gave up her whole life to the 
task of training him until it should be time for him to go 
to a public school. Her own education had been carried 
further than the average standard by her conscientious 
German governess, and slie was able to prepare her boy 
for Eugby. She made up her mind that he sliould not be 
a soldier. She wanted to shield him from the temptations 
of military life. He went to Eugby, she pinching herself 
to provide the expenses of his maintenance there; and he 
was expelled in the second year. That was a crushing 
blow. Then he told her that he had not tried to do well. 
He had set his heart upon being a soldier, and she had 
better send him to an army coach to prepare for Wool- 
wich. That profession, and no other, would he work for. 
She was firm, and the boy was sullen. If he was not to go 
into the army, he' would do nothing. He idled away his 
life in the little Welsh settlement, amusing himself with 


22 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


any sport that came within his reach — fishing, shooting, a 
day’s hunting now and again — always a trouble and an ex- 
pense, a care and a grief, to tlie poor mother. But the 
worst was to come. Before his nineteenth birthday 
she had discovered the hereditary taint. Her son was an 
incipient drunkard. She moved heaven and earth to get 
him into new surroundings, a more active life. She was 
told by a medical wiseacre that a new country, an open-air 
life would cure him; and after infinite trouble she shipped 
him off to Queensland, with introductions which provided 
for his being decently placed at a sheep-farmer’s when he 
got there. She heard from him once after his arrival, a 
letter written in good spirits, full of sanguine ideas of suc- 
cess in his new career. And then followed a silence which 
has never been broken; but in the account of the wreck of 
the Erl King, bound from Brisbane to London, there was 
in the list of passengers lost a young man called Stuart, 
traveling alone, whose description, obtained by Clare 
from the Brisbane agent, corresponded very fairly with 
that of her son, so it is more than probable that the sea 
has closed over Valentine Stuart.” 

Let us hope it is so,” said the colonel, cheerily; '^a 
young man with those proclivities could never be anything 
but a scourge to his mother. For your sake, and for Lady 
Darnel’s, I hope the youth found a watery grave. There 
is something very terrible in the idea of death when it 
takes away some one we love; but there is something un- 
commonly comfortable in the idea of death when it re- 
moves some one we want to get rid of,” added the colonel, 
philosophically. 

‘^It was at Torquay that I met my wife,” continued 
Sir Allan. went there after a month with the Exmoor 
hounds, for a few days’ visit to an old friend of my 
father’s, vicar of one of the outlying parishes, a man who 
remembered Hurrell Fronde and the days of the Oxford 
Tracts. He had known Clare from her childhood, had 
prepared her for confirmation, and had married her to the 
man who blighted her life. I heard the sad story from 
him before I saw her face. Perhaps sympathy and com- 
passion prepared my heart for loving her. In any case, I 
fell in love with her at first sight; and I did not leave 
Torquay till I had won her. I am hol'd enough to believe 
that her heart was mine almost from the beginning; but 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


23 


she was constrained by unselfish fears for my welfare, and 
it was with difficulty I obtained her consent to be my wife 
with as little delay as possible. She feared the scandal 
that might arise in my neighborhood if once that terrible 
story of her first husband got wind; she reminded me of 
the uncertainty surrounding her son’s fate, and the possi- 
bility that he was still living, and might be a burden and 
disgrace to me in the future. I told her that these things 
were trifles — feathers when weighed in the scale against 
the gold of true love. In a word, I overruled all her ob- 
jections, laughed her fears to scorn; and in six weeks after 
our first meeting the dear old vicar married us, and we 
started in the dull gray November weather for our honey- 
moon tour across the Cornish moors, and along the wild 
sea- coast from Tintagel to the Lizard. Oh, those happy 
days in the little inn at the Land’s End, beside the roar- 
ing Atlantic! alone, remote from the world and its ways. 
1 shall never forget the sweetness, the perfect confidence 
and love of that time. It has grown and strengthened 
since then — it will go on increasing till I die.” 

‘‘And there has been no cloud on your happiness at 
Darnel?” 

“None, or only the slightest summer clouds, hardly 
worth talking about. My marriage was naturally a blow 
to Dora, who had been mistress of Darnel Manor ever 
since my step-mother’s death. She talked at first of going 
away — living abroad — buying a bouse in Salisbury for the 
sake of the cathedral service, she said. But she stayed 
on, interfered a good deal with my wife in the manage- 
ment of the house and servants, and was obviously un- 
happy.” 

“'foil ought to have got rid of her, Allan,” said the 
colonel, frankly. “ These menages a trois never answer. 
It would have been happier for you and your half-sister if 
she had set up an independent establishment, were it even 
within a mile of your gates.” 

“ I was seriously meditating making her the offer of a 
handsome addition to her income, in order to enable her 
to live independently, without any diminution of thecom- 
fort she has enjoyed here.” 

So like yon, my dear Allan, to be seriously meditat- 
ing a step which ought to have been taken months before 
you began to meditate,” said the colonel, laughing. 


24 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


Well, I did not want to be nnbrotherly, yon see; and 
Dora had kept my house so admirably. However, while 
I was thinking of cutting the knot of the difficulty my 
way, my dear Clare cut it her way, which was much more 
generous. She came down to breakfast one morning with 
her little morocco key-casket in her hand, and gave it over 
to Dora in my presence. am a very bad housekeeper,’ 
she said, ^and 1 have no love for government, wdiile you 
are a superb manager, and have rather a liking for the 
reigns of power; so why should we live uncomfortably 
when we might live happily, each after her own taste? 
From this day forth I renounce all administrative rights 
and privileges at Darnel Manor.” 

How did Miss Darnel take that?” 

Hardly so pleasantly as she ought to have done. She 
sneered at poor Clare’s renunciation of domestic manage- 
ment as if it had been an assertion of intellectual superi- 
ority. ‘ I dare say, looking after servants and ordering 
dinners does seem a very degrading occupation to a per- 
son of your superior mind,’ she said, ‘ but I have always 
remembered that my brother’s comfort depends upon 
these vulgar details.’ She made me very angry.” 

‘‘ I should have taken her by the scruff of the neck and 
pitched her out of doors,” interjected Colonel Stukely. 

I did not go quite so far as that, but I gave Dora a 
bit of my mind there and then; and I think her cold ham 
and chicken that morning was rather a hot breakfast. 
She is always sweetest after a good licking; so after break- 
fast she took the keys as meekly as a lamb, and promised 
that she would prove worthy of Lady Darnel’s confidence. 

‘ You are much too generous and too indulgent to the 
servants,’ she said. ‘ That has been your only fault as a 
housekeeper.’” 

change had come o’er the spirit of her dream,” 
laughed the colonel. ‘‘Ten o’clock, by Jove. Hadn’t 
w^e better go to the ladies?” 


CHAPTER III. 
grace’s promise of marriage. 

Colonel Stukely had been a guest of Darnel Manor 
for nearly two months. He had explored all the country- 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


25 


side, within thirty miles, looking for that ideal estate— a 
small but perfect house, with perfect stables, a good old- 
fashioned garden, and about forty acres of fertile pasture — 
which he had dreamed of for many a year under the tropic 
stars, and which he found almost as difficult of attain- 
ment as if he had wanted an estate in one of those very 
stars. The colonel and his host drove many a mile in Sir 
Allan’s dog-cart with the high-stepping horse, to see 
places which were described in auctioneer’s advertisements 
as earthly paradises, and which generally proved the kind 
of habitation that a man buys in an interval of lunacy, 
with insane ideas of improvements or reconstruction, and 
which he tries to shuffle off upon a new victim directly he 
recovers his senses. 

The colonel made shorter pilgrimages in his goddaugh- 
ter’s pony carriage, Gracie very proud of driving her war- 
rior about the country. But as yet nothing beyond the 
pleasure of exploring a charming landscape in the golden 
harvest-time had resulted from their excursions. 

Yes, there had been one result, and an important one 
so far as Grace Darnel was concerned. During one of 
these rustic jaunts, the girl took courage and opened her 
heart to her godfather, the most faithful and the most 
indulgent friend she had ever known from the days of her 
childhood. 

They went a little further than usual on this occasion, 
to a place which had been described as a gem of pictur- 
esque beauty; and which turned out to be a dilapidated 
farm-house situated on the edge of a swamp, and sur- 
rounded by meadow-land that would have cost a small 
fortune to drain. The colonel was amused rather than 
indignant at the discrepancy between the place itself and 
the auctioneer’s advertisement. 

To think that we should have driven eleven miles 
through some of the vilest roads in Wilts to look at such 
a God-forsaken hole as this,” he exclaimed, after he and 
Grace had perambulated the neglected old garden and had 
emerged upon the road in front of the gates. 

There was a long wooden bridge a few paces further on, 
spanning an expanse of watery pasture, full of reed and 
bulrush, and on this bridge the colonel stood, with his 
arms folded on the handrail, looking lazily at the cows up 
to their haunches in the rank verdure. 


26 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


He turned round, smiling at his god-daughter, expect- 
ing her to be amused at this latest example of house 
agents’ inventive faculties; but to his surprise and dis- 
comfiture he found her in tears. 

‘‘Why, GrMcie,” he cried, tenderly, “what is amiss 
with my little girl?” 

“ Everything,” Grace answered, vehemently. “I must 
tell some one. I can not bear it any longer. To be so 
base, so secret, so false to those I love I I hate and de- 
spise myself. I realiy think I am the wickedest, meanest 
girl in England. I had rather tell you than anyone else, 
because you are always indulgent, and you won’t preach 
as papa would. He would forgive me in the end, I dare 
say, but he would begin by preaching — and I am so un- 
liappy tliat I don’t think I could bear a word.” 

“My dearest Gracie, you mean! You deceitful! I 
would not hear your enemy say so, and leave liim un- 
kicked. Nonsense, child,” said the colonel, cheerily, lay- 
ing his friendly hand upon Grace’s shoulder. Her head 
was bent so that he could not see her face, and her tears 
were dropping into the rank grass and making the 
meadow a little more watery for the cows. “Stuff and 
nonsense, my dear. Some little girlish folly which you 
have concealed from Sir Allan, and which your own fancy 
has exaggerated into a matter of importance.” 

“It is not a little folly, colonel. It is a big folly. I 
am engaged to be married — to a person whom my father 
has never seen — of whose very existence he is ignorant.” 

“Humph,” exclaimed Stukely, “that sounds rather 
serious. But people .get out of such engagements — occa- 
sionally.” 

“ I shall never get out of mine,” answered Grace, with 
a heroic air. “ I would die rather than break my word.” 

“ Of course, of course,” said the godfather, soothingl}^ 

“ More especially as the person to whom I am engaged 
is very badly off, and not able to — ” 

“ To maintain you,” interjected the colonel. “ Natur- 
ally, my dear, naturally. That is an excellent reason for 
sticking to him. And now tell me all about it. When 
and where did you meet this gentleman?” 

“In Paris, at the Louvre.” 

“The big shop for gowns, and bonnets, and things?” 

“No, the picture gallery.” 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


27 


Who introduced him to you?” 

Nobody. A mahl stick.” 

‘‘A nicihl stick introduced him?” 

‘‘ Oh, godfather, please don’t be shocked. I know how 
horrid it all was — how unladylike — how improper. I 
have thought about it, and cried over it many a time 
since I came home. Nobody introduced him to me. 
You know how fond I am of painting. I worked very 
hard when I was in Paris; and I got permission from Ma- 
dame Sartori to go and paint three times a week at the 
Louvre. Horrid old thing, I believe she was glad to get 
rid of me. She told off one of the governesses — a do- 
mestic drudge, a lady-help sort of person — to go with me, 
for which father paid five guineas a term extra. It was 
all very correct and proper so far. In fine weather we 
used to walk from Passy to the Louvre. In wet weather 
we had i\ fiacre, which I used to pay for out of my pocket- 
money. Lady Darnel and father between them kept me 
very handsomely supplied.” 

No doubt,” said the colonel, ‘‘and I have observed 
that ‘Satan finds some mischief still,’ as Dr. Watts says, 
for school boys and girls who have too much pocket 
money. Go on, Grace.” 

“ One dtiy I was copying a Madonna, by Guido — not a 
bit like, I know — for my Madonna would come out with 
a purple complexion, like a cabman in cold weather, and 
the picture was hung high. So I had to sit on a kind of 
platform four feet off the ground. It was very nice sit- 
ting up there, and looking down at the people, and at the 
other students. There were three or four in the room. 
One of them was a remarkably handsome young man, who 
was copying a little Wouvermans, in water colors, in a 
spirited, dashing style, which I thought wonderfully clever. 
He looked dreadfully ill, poor fellow — such hollow cheeks, 
such a haggard look about his large dark eyes. But that 
naturally made him all the more interesting.” 

“Naturally,” said the colonel. “Given a young man 
without sixpence and with a marked tendency to pulmon- 
ary consumption, and granted a generous-hearted girl, 
the result may be calculated upon as a certainty. Of 
course you fell in love with him on the spot?” 

“ I am not that kind of person, colonel. I don’t sup- 
pose I should ever have given him a serious thought if it 


28 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


had not been for the accident which introduced us to each 
other. He talked a good deal to a frumpish little elderly 
woman who was toiling at a big altar piece, and who 
looked as if she worked for her living. He had such 
bright, winning ways that I could not help noticing him — 
a little. Mademoiselle Bouge, the governess, said he was 
the liandsomest young man she had ever seen. One day 
I dropped my mahl stick.’’ 

On purpose:” 

^^Oh, colonel, how can you think so meanly of me? 
No, it was pure accident. He flew to pick it up. I thanked 
him — and then he lingered and began to talk.” 

Was he a Frenchman?” 

‘'A thorough Parisian. He told me, in the politest 
way, that my flesh tints were too blue, and gave me some 
excellent hints about color. Then he went back to his 
easel, and took no further notice, except a particularly 
graceful bow when I left the room. When I went back 
two days afterward, he was there again, at another 
Wouvermans. He bowed when I went in; gentlemen 
bow flrst in France, you know; and I could not be so 
bearish as not to acknowledge his bow. I got on to my 
platform, and poor Mademoiselle Bouge sat on her usual 
bench, and stared at the pictures, in her usual sleepy way. 
My hand trembled so that 1 could hardly paint.” 

And you dropped your mahl stick again.” 

‘‘ No, colonel! How can you imagine such conduct? 
You have evidently a poor opinion of girls. I went on 
painting, wretchedly, for half an hour or so; getting that 
poor Madonna bluer and bluer with every touch of tlie 
brush, and just as I was beginning to despair of her, the 
young Frenchman came over to me, and asked me if I 
would allow him to give me a few more hints upon color- 
ing and harmony, and so on. I neither said yes nor no, 
only murmured vaguely, like a shy simpleton as I was. 
He seemed to think this gave him full permission, and he 
took the picture in hand, and told me how I had gone 
wrong, and showed me what to do. This was the begin- 
ning of our friendship, which came about very gradually, 
almost unawares; but in a fortnight’s time we were friends. 
We did not talk much. That would have been impossible 
in a public room, and under the eye of Mademoiselle Bouge; 
but be used to contrive to give me a letter every time we 


OUT BY THE COUNTY. 


29 


met, and he was wonderfully clever at slipping the letter 
under my color box, or into my hand, without poor old 
Bonge seeing him.” 

He had done the same kind of thing very often before, 
no doubt.” 

You ought not to say that, colonel; it is not like your 
usual kindness. No, he told me, in his very first letter 
that he had never been really in love before.” 

- ‘‘They never have,” muttered the colonel. 

“ He wrote the loveliest letters.” 

“ And you answered them?” 

“ I was obliged to answer sometimes, I hardly knew 
how wrong it was. You see I had been brought up in a 
place where I knew everybody, and I had no idea of being 
afraid of strangers. I told him who I was, and how I was 
finishing my education at Madame Sartori’s, and he told 
me his own history, and that he was an orphan quite alone 
in the world, and that he belonged to a good old Burgun- 
dian family, and that he had come to Paris to study art.” 

“A regular Bohemian, no doubt.” 

“You ought not to say that, godfather. He always 
looked like a gentleman, though his clothes were shabby. 
And though he lived on the left side of the Seine, in the 
students’ quarter, his manners were perfect.” 

“ And his name. He had a name, I suppose.” 

“ His name is Victor de Camillac,” answered Grace, 
with dignity; “and I am engaged to him.” 

“Eeally and truly engaged to him? That is carrying 
things rather far with a young man with whom you only 
exchanged a few words about painting, and half a dozen 
surreptitious love-letters.” 

“ There were a great many more than half a dozen,” 
answered Grace; “ he wrote volumes. He gave me a let- 
ter every time I went to the Louvre — such clever letters, 
so eloquent, so poetical.” 

“ I know the kind of thing. He is one of those men 
with whom letter-writing is a complaint,” said the colonel. 
“ Your dragon. Miss Bouge, must have been a very sleepy 
personage to have had no suspicion oi what was going on 
under her nose.” 

“ 01), she had her Suspicions, poor soul, but I per- 
suaded her to keei3 my secret. I blush to say that I ap- 
pealed to her mealiest instincts.’^ 


30 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


As how?’’ 

You know the confectioners’ at the corner of the Kue 
Castiglione?” 

^^No.” 

‘‘Don’t you? How I pity you! It is one of the best 
— I believe it is the best confectioner’s in Paris. I used 
to take Bouge tliere every afternoon when we left the 
Louvre. ‘ Now, dear,’ I used to say, ‘ take whatever you 
fancy,’ and the poor soul used to revel in eclairs and choux 
and brioches, and meringues and red currant syrup to an 
alarming extent.” 

“ How she must have missed you when you left school!” 
said the colonel, laughing. 

He could not bring himself to be very angry with his 
goddaughter for this folly of hers; nor could he think 
very seriously of this interchange of love-letters with a 
shabby-genteel Frenchman. The whole business seemed, 
at the first blush, too foolish for grave consideration; and 
yet on reflection Colonel Stukely told himself that it was 
a kind of folly which might entail considerable conse- 
quences. Very disagreeable if the young man were a 
scamp; and tl^e circumstances favored that inference. 

“And do you mean to say, Gracie,” he began, after a 
pause, “ that you have engaged yourself, in black and 
white, to a man of whose surroundings and antecedents 
you knew absolutely nothing?” 

“ I knew everything,” she answered, indignantly. “Vic- 
tor told me his whole history. He was thoroughly frank. 
He confessed that he had only just enough to live upon, 
poorly, and in a poor quarter. His father had been ruined 
by the Mexican war, having been tempted to put all his 
money into Mexican bonds. When his father died, Vic- 
tor came to Paris to study art, in the hope of becoming a 
distinguished painter, like Meissonier or Vidal. If I would 
promise to marry him, he told me he should have a new 
incentive to industry, perseverance, patience — the holiest 
and purest incentive.” 

“ That fetched you,” said the colonel, “ and you prom- 
ised.” 

“Not for months after I received that letter. What a 
very feeble person you must think me, colonel.” 

“I think you an adorable little goose,” said her 
godfather. 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


3i 


don’t tliink I should have consented to engage m}’- 
self to him,” pursued Grace, ^^only one day I missed him 
in the room where he and I had both been working.” 

Still at your Guido?” 

‘‘ Oh, no. I had gone into another room, and’ I was 
copying a flower piece. Victor advised me to paint flowers 
and fruit and things — dead nature, as he called them — 
rather than Italian Madonnas. One day he was missing, 
and the next time, and the next. I had not seen him for 
a week. I felt sure that he must be ill. I was very un- 
happy about him; haunted by the image of his poor pale 
face. At the end of the week he wrote to me, under cover 
to Mademoiselle Bouge, who brought me the letter to my 
room, with a fearful countenance, and told me it might have 
been the ruin of her to receive it, which was sheer non- 
sense, as even Madame Sartori’s sharp eyes could not read 
the inside of a thick envelope.” 

“ The letter told you he was dying, 1 presume,” said 
the colonel. 

It was only a few lines scribbled with a pencil, and 
written from what he thought would be his death-bed. 
It was a last' adieu; for he told me that he had no hope of 
seeing me again.” 

You did not go to see him, I hope,” said the colonel 
anxiously, not knowing to what compromising step the 
girl might have been tempted, in her inexperience of life. 

That would have been impossible. I think I might 
have persuaded that good old Bouge to ask for an evening 
out, and to go and see him for me. But there was no 
address to his letter. There never had been any address 
to his letters.” 

‘‘ A curious gentleman to be ashamed to own where he 
lived,” said the colonel. 

“ It was only pardonable pride, poor fellow. He knew 
that my people were rich, and he was ashamed to let me 
know how shabby a street he lived in. As if that would 
make any difference to me!” 

You answered the death-bed letter?” 

"'Yes, godfather,” Grace answered, softly, hanging her 
pretty head, and contributing a few more tears to the 
waterv meadow. 

"And what kind of letter did you write, my dear?” 
asked tlie colonel, gently. 


32 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


I am afraid it was a very foolish one. I was so sorry 
for him, poor fellow — so sorry to think of him being alone, 
dying, in a wretched lodging — and I begged him to get 
well for my sake, and told him that I would be true to 
him in his poverty, and that if he would be content to 
wait for me till I could win my father’s consent to our 
marriage, and be constant to me, as I would be to him, 
perhaps for years, I would give him the promise that he 
had so often pleaded for in those beautiful letters.” 

I am very glad you made the matter contingent on 
your father’s consent, my love,” said the colonel, cheerily. 

The business is not half so bad as I thought. Was there 
anything more in your letter?” 

Only that if my father should refuse his consent to 
our engagement I would never marry any one else. So far 
at least I was my own mistress. I might not be allowed 
to marry him, I loved my father too well to be disobe- 
dient or rebellious. But I pledged myself to be true to 
Victor even in life-long severance.” 

Whew,” exclaimed the colonel. A pretty kettle of 
fish! And is that why you so unmercifully snubbed young 
Colchester, the Master of the Hounds, when we were out 
cub-hunting the other morning?” 

I am not aware that I snubbed Mr. Colchester,” said 
Grace, blushing furiously. 

‘‘ Oh, but he was aware of it. You treated him shame- 
fully! Such a nice young fellow, too, and so particularly 
attentive to you — opening gates and making way for you 
at fences, and lingering by your side to talk when he ought 
to have no eyes except for those young hounds of his, till 
at last you drove him away by slieer incivility. When a 
man is Lord of the Manor and Master of the Hounds he 
hardly expects to be treated like that.” 

I have nothing to do with Mr. Colchester’s expecta- 
tions,” answered Grace, tossing up her head, but with tears 
still in the sweet hazel eyes. It is cruel of you to talk 
like that, godfather, when I have told you that lam bound 
to poor Victor by a most sacred promise.” 

Did you see much more of poor Victor after the death- 
bed betrothal?” 

We only met once after that, for my last term at Ma- 
dame Sartori’s was just coming to an end: my father and 
mother were coming to fetch me. Victor came to the 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


83 


Louvre on tlie very last day I painted there, looking like 
a ghost, poor fellow, and with a feverish light in his eyes. 
He ought not to have left his bed; but he was determined 
to see me before I went back to England. His poor hand 
trembled like a leaf when we shook hands. He thanked 
me with tears in his eyes for my letter, and implored me 
to keep my promise. He said he was prepared to wait a 
life-time for me; but he hoped to overcome my father’s 
objections to our marriage in a year or so, when he should 
have sold a few pictures and exhibited in the Salon. ‘ Di- 
rectly I have a little money and a shred of leputation 
I shall come to Darnel and ask for your hand boldly,’ 
he said. I told him that my father was the most gen- 
erous of men, and that I had plenty of money for both 
of us.” 

“ And so you parted. And you have corresponded with 
him ever since, 1 conclude?” 

‘MVe have corresponded— at intervals. Victor writes 
the loveliest letters; but he is a very irregular correspond- 
ent. Sometimes a month goes by without my hearing 
from him, and I am tortured by the idea that he is ill or 
dying — dead, perhaps; while I am amusing myself play- 
ing tennis, and going to parties, in ignorance of his fate. 
And then comes a long eloquent letter explaining his 
silence. He has been ill and out of spirits, too depressed 
to write, afraid to plague me with his misery — or he has 
been working at a picture like a demon, only to have it 
refused at the Salon.” 

“Not a cheerful correspondent,” said the colonel. 
“'And now. Grade, my pet, my darling, whom I can re- 
member a chubby baby in a white frock and blue shoulder- 
knots, and with little blue shoes — how proud you were of 
those little shoes! — now tell me, honestly, frankly, bravely, 
are you desperately in love with this young French paint- 
er, whose face your father has never seen?” 

“I was very fond of him, colonel, or I should never 
have given that promise.” 

“ Of course not. But you have had a year and a half 
for sober reflection — a long time in sucli a young life as 
yours. And reflection has told you that you were very 
foolish to give such a promise, and you would be very glad 
to be released from it.” 

“For my father’s sake,” faltered Grace. “Yes, I 


.34 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


sliould be glad to be free from that foolish engagement; 
for Tm afraid it would grieve my dear father. And he is 
so good to me — so indulgent — every new kindness of his 
seems like a knife plunged into my heart. 

Well, my dear girl, you have two duties before you, 
painful, perhaps, both of them. First, to tell Sir Allan 
everything, just as frankly as yoiijiave told me. Second- 
ly, to write to Monsieur Camillac, requesting him to re- 
lease you from your promise.” 

Oh, no, no, colonel, don’t ask me. I could not tell 
my father, and I could not ask Victor to release me; not 
now, while he is poor and ill and unhappy. If he were to 
become rich, admired, famous, I would not mind asking 
him to set me free.” 

‘‘ That is just like my generous, romantic Gracie,” said 
the colonel, smiling. “ You would be true to a pauper 
and a failure; but y^u would ask for your freedom from a 
successful painter. Well, my child, you have trusted me, 
and I must prove myself worthy of your confidence. Take 
time to think of what I said just now. I feel sure that 
you will not be happy till you have made a full confession 
to your father, who would not scold you a whit more se- 
verely than I have done.” 

‘^ But he would be so shocked, so grieved,” exclaimed 
Grace. ‘‘I could not endure to see the grieved look in 
his face, his surprise in finding that I had kept a secret 
from him. He always praises me for my candor, and to 
find out all at once that I am a whited sepulcher, No, I 
could not bear it.” 

‘‘Better to pluck up your courage, Grace, and take the 
bull by the horns. A secret like yours can not be kept 
forever. This Monsieur Camillac is poor, an artist, and 
a Bohemian; and he knows that you are rich and will 
have an independent fortune under your mother’s settle- 
ment when you come of age. I suppose you told him 
that.” 

“ I told him all about myself and my people.” 

“Well, my dear child, can you suppose that a young 
man in his circumstances will be patient forever, will hold 
his peace forever, when he has a chance of marrying an 
heiress? Be sure that, however quiet he may be now, he 
will push his claims vigorously when you come of age. 
And that will be — ” 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


35 


'‘Next year/’ sighed Grace. 

‘‘ Then, my love, the sooner you face your difficulties 
boldly, the better it will be for your chances of happiness. 
Tell your father everything while I am on the premises, 
and if my GTace wants any backer with the most indul- 
gent of fathers, she knows she has a sturdy champion in 
her faithful old colonel.” 

“ Dear godfather, how good you are to me!” murmured 
Grace, lifting up the soldier’s sunburnt hand and kisa- 
ing it. 

And now I think those ponies of yours must have had 
their mouths washed out and be ready for action,” said 
the colonel, who did not wish to press the sinner too hard 
just at brst, trusting to Grace’s own reflections to bring 
about the desired result. 

They walked back to the carriage in silence, Grace very 
downcast; but the colonel talked of indifferent matters in 
his pleasantest manner all the way home, and contrived to 
put his goddaughter into good spirits again before they 
reached Darnel Park. 

Sir Allan rarely appeared at luncheon, and to-day Lady 
Darnel and he' were both out. But Miss Darnel was al- 
ways at her post. She was not locomotive; indeed she 
had a cat-like fondness for the house, rarely extending 
her peregrinations beyond a cat-like pacing to and fro of 
the terrace in front of the drawing-room windows, or a 
perambulation of the dewy lawns or shrubberies. She 
might be met at all times and seasons prowling about the 
corridors with that velvet footfall of hers. And thus it 
came about that nothing, not the most attenuated partic-^ 
ular of existence, could occur at Darnel without Dora’s 
knowledge; hardly a sentence could be spoken of which 
she did not hear enough to divine the drift of the speaker. 
The servants had thus come to consider her omniscient, 
and to fear her accordingly. She was an admirable 
housekeeper, for her whole attention was riveted upon the 
details of existence at Darnel, She had no joys, no hopes, 
no fears: no interests outside the park gates. She was 
not witliout accomplishments, and she was not jvitfiout in- 
tellecftial culture—yet the world of politics, the world of 
art, the world of^the past and of the future were to her a 
dead letter. She lived only to rule and reign in her little 
kingdom of Darnel, It may be conceived^ thereforej what 


36 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


mental tortures she suffered on the occasion of her brother’s 
second marriage, when she &aw the scepter slipping from 
her grasp. 

^‘Has father driven to Scadleigh?” asked Grace, as she 
sat down to luncheon, looking very pretty in the dark 
gray cloth sailor gown, with a coquettish terra-cotta velvet 
waistcoat, just a touch of vivid color to set off her milk- 
white skin, and harmonize with her ruddy gold hair. 

He has gone to London.” 

‘^To London?” 

‘‘Yes. He and Lady Darnel started directly you were 
gone. They drove off in a tremendous hurry to catch the 
express at Scadleigh.” 

“But father didn’t say one word about it at breakfast,” 
exclaimed Grace. 

“ I believe it was quite a sudden resolution. They 
are to be back to dinner. We are to dine at half-past 
eight, colonel. I hope you won’t mind.” . . 

“ Not I,” said the colonel. “Grace and 1 will sit in 
the firelight and tell each other fairy stories.” 

It was still that pleasant autumn season when evening 
fires are a luxury, and when home grows every day more 
homely. 

“ My father has gone to town on business, I supposoj” 
said Grace, sorely mystified by this unpremeditated rush 
to London, which was so unlike her father’s usual habjts. 
“ But why drag Lady Darnel with him?” 

“ I have not the faintest notion,” said Dora. “ Allan 
told me nothing beyond the bare fact that he was going to 
take Lady Darnel to town, and that they would be back 
to dinner. He begged me to convey his apologies to you, 
Colonel Stukely.” 

“There was no occasion for apologies,” said the colonel. 

Both he and Grace knew Miss Darnel well enough to be 
convinced that she knew all about her brother’s business 
in London. Those sharp ears, those acute perceptions of 
hers were rarely at fault. 


CHAPTER IV. 

“here’s a pretty kettle O^nSH.” 

Sir Allan’s business in London did not remaiii long 
a mystery to his trusted friend. When the ladies had left 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


37 


the dining-room that evening, the two old comrades in 
arms drew their chairs to the heartli, and lighted their 
cigarettes, and then came the hour of confidence. 

I dare say you all wondered what took us up to town 
in such a hurry this morning,” said Allan. 

Grace has an active imagination, and she exercised it 
vigorously oetween luncheon and five o’clock tea” 
answered the colonel, laughing; ‘‘but my sluggish old 
brain has not been much disturbed by the "mysterv. • 
reople think nothing of an eighty-mile journey to and fro‘ 
by express. It would have been difTerent if you had had* 
to go in a dhak.” ' 


I took Clare to see Sir Clarkson Andrews.” 

^‘indeed.” 

“Yes, I have been anxious about her for a long time* 
and in spite of our family doctor’s assurance that there 
was no cause for alarm, I determined to consult a first-rate 
physician. So, as this morning was particularly fine, and 
1 had no work to do at home, I persuaded her to go to 
Cavendish Square with me. I telegraphed for an appoint- 
ment from Scadleigh, so there was no time lost. Sir 
Clarkson was kindness itself, had a long talk with mv 
wife, assured me that there was nothing organically wrong, 
only a tendency to languor and low spirits, which mi<yht 
develop into something worse if we were not careful. He 
strongly recommended me to take Lady Darnel to Italy 
for the winter. I am to move her from place to place, 
give her plenty of change of scene; in a word, to do all in 
my power to amuse and interest her. ‘I have no doubt 
Darnel Park is a charming place; but frankly now. Sir 
Allan, isn’t it just a little dull?’ he asked. I admitted 
the fact. ‘Of course, all parks are dull,’ he said, ‘shut 
in from the outside world— a dignified seclusion. Very 
few neighbors within easy reach, I dare say.’ ‘Very few 
whom Lady Darnel cares for,’ replied I. ‘Just so.’ said 
Sir Clarkson. ‘ Oh, I know those parks. They have to 
answer for shortening the lives or our aristocracy. Take 
Lady Darnel along the Riviera, letting her see every place 
that is worth seeing, and then drop quietly down into Italy 
for the winter. You can take her back" to Darnel when ' 
the primroses are in bloom; and I pledge my honor she 
will be a new creature.” 


38 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


Well, my dear Allan, this was rather cheering than 
otherwise.” 

‘‘ It was comforting to know what is wrong. Poor dear 
Clare! I do not think it is the dullness. of Darnel Park 
she has felt half as much as the want of sociability upon 
the part of my old county friends. That has wounded 
her deeply.” 

‘‘ Have they been more unsociable than county people 
usually are?” asked the colonel, with pardonable hypocrisy. 

He was very well aware of the fact both from Miss 
Darnel’s innuendoes and from his own personal observa- 
tion. The county had given Sir Allen’s second wife the 
coldest reception compatible with civility. 

‘^They are not absolutely uncivil; they would not dare 
to be that to my wife,” said Allen; ‘'but they have not 
been cordial. There has been no real friendliness. 
They take every occasion to let my wife feel that she is 
not in their own particular set; and she does feel it, more, 
I believe, for my sake than for her own. Slie is too proud 
to court anybody’s friendship. The people all made their 
duty calls when we came home from our honey-moon; but 
there was a flavor. of duty about the thing which was un- 
pleasant. Then came three or four state dinners to which 
my wife went, and where she was made to feel somehow 
by thejeminine portion of the party that, she was received 
on sufferance. We gave two or three dinners that winter, 
at which some of my old friends were present; but there 
was a suspicious number of previous engagements, and I 
knew poor Clare felt humiliated at finding it such a dif- 
ficult matter to make up a party of twenty. Since then 
we have fallen into the way of living almost entirely alone. 
The rector and his wife come to us in a friendly way, very 
often, as you have seen. Occasionally I have an old army 
friend down from London. Young Colchester drops in 
to luncheon pretty often in the hunting season — and that 
is about all. Clare never complains, and she is not de- 
pendent for her happiness upon society; but I know she 
feels the slight which is involved for a woman in her po- 
sition not being sought out and made much of. In fact,” 
said Sir Allan, waxing savage, as was his wont when he 
touched on this topic, “ I shall be very glad to get Lady 
Darnel away from this accursed hole,” 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 39 

Grace will go with you, of course/’ observed the 
colonel. 

had not been thinking of taking her.” 

My dear Allan, she would eat her heart out if you left 
her alone with Miss Darnel.” 

‘‘ Those two do not get on well together, certainly. 
And Grace adores my wife. Yet it seems a pity to take 
her away Just at the beginning of the fox-hunting, and 
after I have bought her that new mare. Grace is so fond 
of hunting; and young Ted Colchester — ” 

“ Is so found of Grace. Is that what you were going 
to say?” 

‘‘ It is pretty near the truth, I think. And Colchester 
is a thoroughly good fellow, the only man in the neigh- 
borhood who has shown himself thoroughly stanch and 
cordial since my marriage. He belongs to a good old 
family, and he has a fine estate. I should be proud of 
such a son-in-law.” 

And you may have him for a son-in-law, if you play 
your cards properly. Take an old bachelor’s advice, 
Allan. I don’t think Gracie cares much for Edward Col- 
chester now. He has been too attentive, too devoted, is 
too obviously a good match. The first idea of a high- 
spirited, romantic girl like Grace is generally to throw 
herself away upon a pauper. If Colchester were a penni- 
less nobody, and could only approach her by stealth, I 
have no doubt she would adore him. But as he is well 
off, and you have broadly hinted that you would like her 
to marry him, the natural result is that she despises him. 
Take her to Italy with you, keep her closely under Lady 
Darnel’s eye, and when she comes back to Darnel the 
odds are she will like young Colchester ever so much bet- 
ter than when she went away. She has seen hardly any 
other eligible young man for the last year and a half, and 
he has palled upon her in consequence. Distance will 
lend enchantment to the view.” 

. “ What an old fox you are, Weldon,” said Sir Allan, 
smiling. Yes, I believe you are right. Grace shall go 
with us, even if the new mare and old Blackie have to eat 
their heads off while she is away. Perhaps' you’ll winter 
at Darnel and keep the stud in good working order for 
us.” 

‘‘You are too good, my dear fellow,” replied the colonel, 


40 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


inwardly slmddering at the idea of a winter spent with 
Dora. “No, I shall stay in town, if I fail in finding 
a place down here; and after nearly two months I am 
as far from realizing my ideal him ting- box as I was when - 
I first came.’’ 

In the drawing-room that evening Sir Allan was in un- 
usually good spirits. The idea of getting his wife away 
from Darnel for a good long time was a relief to him. In 
spite of his perfect happiness in his married life there were 
times when he felt the chilling attitude which some of his 
oldest acquaintances had assumed since his second mar- 
riage. Up to tiiat time he had deemed these j^eople his 
friends; and now they had been tested, he knew they had 
never been more than acquaintances. Thme had not made 
, them loyal and true. Yes, it was delightful to think of 
being in a foreign land with his beloved wife, amidst 
strange faces. He felt grateful to Sir Clarkson for having 
insisted upon Italy. He talked of nothing but their 
journey. 

“ Grace, you are to go with us,” he said. “Your god- 
father there has promised and vowed for you, that you 
will be very good, and give us no trouble, and that you 
will help me to take care of Clare. So you will have to 
settle your fine points, as old Capulet says, get all 3^our 
frocks and fineries ready, at a very short notice.” 

“ How good of yon, dear father.” 

You like to go, then,” said Sir Allan, looking at her 
sharply. “ You don’t mind missing the hunting?” 

Grace blushed at the question, as if it touched a sensi- 
tive chord. 

“ One can have fox-hunting any year,” she said, “ but 
not an Italian tour.” 

“ And your Parisian French will be useful to me when 
Clare is not at my side,” said Sir Allan. “ I used to spout 
Racine when I was a boy, and I can read a French novel; 
but I can never hit upon little common phrases when I 
am in a hurry. You will have to be ready in less than a 
week, Grace; for as soon as ever I can put my affairs in 
decent order we will be off. Clare is such an orderly per- 
son that she/ is always ready.” 

“I have nothing to do but to be orderly,” said Lady 
Darnel, smiling at him. “Dora takes all household cares 
off my hands, and you never exact anything from me.” 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


41 


‘‘Yes, I do, my dear. I look to you for the happiness 
of my life, and you have never disa^^pointed me,’’ answered 
Sir Allan, tenderly. “Well, we will start directly I have 
paid the quarter’s accounts, and made things straight 
with the steward. I dropped in at the bank as we drove 
to the station and got four hundred in notes, to begin the 
war.” 

“Just as Bismarck called in all the gold he could get- 
before he challenged Austria,” said the colonel. 

“I used to carry circular-notes, but I have found of 
late years that your British bank-note. will pass current in 
most parts of the Continent. And I treated myself to a 
brace of revolvers at Lancasters — the last refinement in 
traveling pistols.” 

“Prudent man!” exclaimed the colonel. “You will 
be quite disappointed if there is no encounter with brig- 
ands to bring your fire-arms into active service.” 

“Grace,” said the colonel, turning to his goddaughter, 
“ if you really mean cub-hunting to-morrow you had bet- 
ter go to bed. It is nearly eleven.” 

“ Of course I mean cub-hunting. Do you think I would 
lose a run now that I am to be away all the season? But it 
hardly seems worth while going to bed when one is to get up 
again at four o’clock. Good-night, father, and thank you 
so much for taking me to Italy. It is the dream of life.” 

“ It has been the dream of my life,” said her aunt, with- 
out looking up from her work-basket, “ but a dream which 
will never be realized.” 

This was just one of those speeches which make every one 
feel uncomfortable, and for which there seems to be no 
appropriate answer. It was the signal for a general depart- 
ure. 

Sir Allan, Colonel Stukely, and Grace were in the saddle 
before five o’clock next morning, and away over the dewy 
uplands, and in and out of dripping copses before six. 
Grace’s new mare behaved beautifully, carried her young 
mistress as if she had been a feather-weight, and evident- 
ly reveled in her work. Sir Allan took his line, Grace had 
her own ideas, and the colonel, who was not so familiar with 
the country, stuck close to Grace, admiring her pretty 
figure and her dashing horsemanship, and altogether very 
proud of his goddaughter. 


42 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


Mr. Colchester was as devoted as a Master of Hounds 
can be, and a keen observer would have been amused to 
see the struggle between duty and inclination which tore 
at his heart strings every time he had to leave Grace’s side 
in order to direct the instincts of his young hounds. He 
seemed happiest when the pack was in full cry and he and 
GraceVere galloping side by side across country. Then 
tliere were gates to be opened, hedges to be taken first by 
his heavy hunter, so as to leave a safer jump for Grace, 
who naturally scorned such old-womanish attentions, in- 
finitely preferring to have led the way over the most break- 
neck point in the fence. 

Colonel Stukely kept close to these two all the time, 
admiring Grace’s admirer almost as heartily as he admired 
Grace herself. And, indeed. Squire Colchester, in his 
gray coat and black velvet cap, was as pleasing a specimen 
of a young English landowner as anybody could desire 
to see — tall, broad-shouldered, fair-complexioned, with 
cheery blue eyes, and crisp brown hair, which would have 
curled all over his head had it not been kept closely shorn. 
It was a frank, kindly face, characteristic of the man, 
who was good-nature personified; but the firmly-molded 
lips and square chin told of a resolute temper and a strong 
will. 

It was in the course of a second run that an incident 
occurred which had a startling effect upon Grace and the 
colonel. They were crossing a common within three 
miles of Darnel Park, a picturesque common on the crest 
of a hill, all hillock and hollow, crowned with a cluster of 
old Scotch firs. As they galloped over the rugged, uneven 
ground, a little recklessly on Grace’s })art, Juno, the new 
mare, gave a desperate shy, for the first time since her 
^mistress had ridden her, and Grace looked round to see 
•the cause of her alarm. 

> A man was lying against a sandy hillock, half buried in 
The furze — a slender figure, in an old velveteen coat, 
travel-stained, out-at-elbows, a dark head half hidden in a 
soft felt hat. 

As Grace turned to look at him, the man raised himself 
sbwly from his recumbent position and looked round him 
listlessly, vaguely, as if suddenly awakened, but not in the 
direction of the young horsewoman, who was some jiaces 
away from the hillock where he sat. Still looking back 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


4B 

at him, she gave a faint, half-stifled cry, just as young 
Colchester came galloping across the common, almost 
brushing against the man on the hillock, and bore Grace 
and the colonel along with him, as on the wings of a. whirl- 
wind. 

They’re running like old boots in the copse,” he cried, 
pointing with his whip. 

Godfather,” gasped Grace, trying to hold her horse 
back as they were galloping along a lane, so as not to be. 
heard by the master, did you see that man on the com- . 
mon?” 

‘‘The tramp who startled your horse? Yes, I saw 
him.” 

“ He is not a tramp. He is Victor de Camillac. Oh, 
how ill and wretched he looked. I should have stop])ed 
if that horrid man hadn’t come rushing by. Do go back 
to him. Ash him where he is stopping — why he has 
come here. Do, colonel, for my sake. And have you 
any money about you?” 

“Two or three pounds, perhaps.” 

“ Give him all you have, please, for me. He looked so 
poor.” 

“ Come along. Miss Darnel,” shouted Mr. Colchester; 
“ they’ve got him.” 

And Grace cantered after him with a little hypocritical 
laugh, pretending to be delighted at the idea of bloodshed, 
although she always felt ready to cry at this stage of the 
entertainment, and told herself that it was too bad, and 
that she would never hunt again; and then, with a charm- 
ing inconsistency, came out next day. 

“The devil!” muttered the colonel, as ho rode slowly 
up the hill; “ here’s a pretty kettle of fish.” 

It was the same classical expression which he had made 
use of yesterday, when Grace told him the story of her' 
engagement, and with the colonel it meant a great deal. 

This man’s presence within an hour’s walk of Darnel 
foreboded mischief. His disreputable appearance indi- 
cated a lapse into the lowest depths of poverty. And 
what generosity or forbearance could be expected from a 
destitute adventurer? The man held Grace’s promise of 
marriage, under her own hand. Could it be supposed that 
he would not make it an instrument of torture, unless he 
were bought off, and got rid of somehow. He was here in 


44 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


the girl’s own neighborhood; he would discover the posi- 
tion her father occupied; lie would, perhaps, be told of 
Edward Colchester’s devotion to her, of the general ex- 
pectation that she would marry him. These things are 
always village gossip long before the princij^als themselves 
have made up their minds. If this adventurer were to 
show Grace’s letters to Edward Colchester, her future 
would be blighted, her father’s hopes cheated. It was a 
detestable entanglement. The colonel could not help feel- 
ing angry with Grace as he rode up the hill. To think- 
that a girl could so trifle with fate, out of sheer silliness — 
could so forfeit self-respect, endanger her reimtation — 
bring pain and discredit upon her parents. 

^‘The only hope is, that if the man is poor we may be 
able to buy him pretty cheap,” thought the colonel. 


CHAPTER V. 

DOUBT HOT THAT I HAVE COUNTED WELL THE COST.” 

Colonel Stukely rode slowly along the top of the 
ridge, looking for the sandy hillock, to leeward of that 
cluster of rugged firs, where Grace and he had seen the 
vagabond lying. He found that particular hillock easily 
enough; there were the prints of the horses’ hoofs to show 
him the way; but the man was gone. He rode all over 
the common, round and about, looking for him, almost 
as closely as the hounds would have hunted for a fox; but 
there was no sign of a human creature sheltering behind 
any of those furze bushes or in any of those hollows. 

He heard the hounds winding round the base of the hill, 
and went zig-zagging down to find Grace in a field at the 
bottom. The fox had gone to ground, and the huntsmen 
were getting the hounds together to go back to the ken- 
nels, digging out not being counted as a virtue in this dis- 
trict. Mr. Colchester was in high spirits; his young 
hounds had worked admirably, and he had been with Grace 
almost all the morning. It was only nine o’clock now; 
they would be back in time for a latish breakfast. Grace 
and her father had dismounted, and were standing side 
by side, while the grooms eased the saddles. Grace gave 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 45 

a little appealing look at the colonel, which he answered 
by a grave shake of his head. 

You’ll come to breakfast with ns, Colchester,” said 
Sir Allan; we are ‘nearer than the manor. And it may 
be the last time we shall breakfast together for five or six 
months.” 

‘‘The last time,” gasped Colchester. “What do yon 
mean?” 

“Lady Darnel is ordered to the south for the winter, 
and we are all off as soon as ever we can start.” 

. “All! Yon and Lady Darnel, I suppose?” 

“And Grace. Grace is going with us.” 

“ What, are you going to lose the hunting, just when 
Sir Allan has brought you that perfect mare, and with 
poor old Blackbird as fit as a fiddle, too? How can you, 
Miss Darnel?” 

“ Yes, it’s very sad, isn’t it?” murmured Grace, hardly 
knowing what she was saying, her mind full of that figure 
lying against the heathy knoll, that rusty velveteen jacket, 
that battered old felt wide-awake, the very image of des- 
titution and decay. Her lover, her plighted lover, the 
man for whose sake she had renounced all the rest of 
mankind, binding herself by a life-long vow. And then 
she glanced shyly at the master of tlie hounds, trotting 
beside her 'along the rustic lane — the frank, manly face, 
the bright English complexion, the look of gentle blood, 
the clear outlook of eyes which had never feared the face 
of a foe. And she knew in her heart of hearts that this 
man cared for her above all women. 

“ Are you really going?” he asked ruefully. 

“ Really and truly,” she said, “ but it is not for so very 
long. We shall come back in the spring, as soon as the 
weather is mild enough for Lady Darnel.” 

“ Not before May,” said Sir Allan. “ Our climate is 
not to be trusted before May.” 

I “And May is about the most treacherous month in 
the year,” interjected the colonel. “ Never put your trust 
in May. All the old English saws tell you that.” 

“And you are going to Italy,” said Edward Colchester, 
growing more and more despondent, “ and there are these 
cursed hounds to tie a fellow by the leg. What part are 
you going to?” 

He had not been much of a Continental traveler, a 


4 (] 


OUT BY THE COUKTY. 


fortnight in Paris being liis largest idea in that line. He 
had boasted that Scotland and Ireland were good enough 
for Jiis holiday ground. Why go to Norway to fish for 
salmon, when one could have better fishing at Connemara, 
among a people who spoke one’s mother tongue more or 
less? Edward Colchester had the sturdy, true blue 
British temperament, and thought that if God had given 
him a fortune it was his duty to spend it in his own 
country. And he did spend liberally in the place where 
he was born. The manor was maintained in noble style, 
chiefly for the advantage of three maiden aunts, his own 
habits being of the simplest. The bulk of the expenses 
of the kennels fell upon him; for although ostensibly a 
subscription pack the AVilton Moor hounds must have 
gone on very short commons, and the Wilton Moor hunts- 
men must have ridden sorry cattle, had they depended on 
the liberality of the neighborhood. 

What part of Italy?” inquired Mr. Colchester, as he 
jogged along by Grace’s side. 

I think father said we were to go to the lakes.” 

Como, and that kind of thing. Ah, very nice, I dare 
say. Any salmon, I wonder. Well, Miss Darnel, as I 
have never seen Italy, I’ll run over and join you for a fort- 
night or so in April, if Sir Allan will let me.” 

You wouH find it very dull, I am afraid,” replied 
Grace, sadly. are not going for sight-seeing or 

gayety; but solely on account of Lady Darnel’s health.” 

I shouldn’t care how quiet you might be. I should go 
to see Italy — and you.” 

I say, Colchester, where did you get that chestnut the 
whip rode this morning ?” asked Sir Allan, and the master 
was obliged to leave Grace’s side to talk to her father. 

Grace fell back directly, and began to question the 
colonel. 

How dreadful!” she said, when he told her of his fail- 
ure. “If he should go away from the neighborhood with- 
out help! Penniless, starving, perhaps.” 

“No fear of that, I think. You may depend he has 
come to this neighborhood meaning to get help, and from 
you. Poor Grace! You will hear of him soon enough, be 
sure. But whenever he does approach you, mind vou 
refer him to me.” 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 47 

How unkindly you speak of him, colonel, as if he 
were my enemy.” 

“How can 1 think of him except as your enemy? A 
penniless adventurer who inveigles a school-girl into an 
engagement which he must know she can only keep at the 
sacrifice of her prospects in life.” 

“ He did not inveigle me. I was very foolish, perhaps,- 
but I acted of my own free will. And you have no right 
to call him an adventurer, just because he is poor, and 
because you see him for the first time under very humili- 
ating circumstances,” said Grace, plucking her handker- 
chief out of the pigskin to dry a sudden rush of tears. 

“ I do not believe that any industrious, well-meaning 
young man Avould fall so low, Grace. There is a provi- 
dence for struggling youth; and when a young fellow 
drops below the level of his own class, be sure there is 
generally a good reason for the fall. You saw this fellow 
in Paris, painting for a livelihood. You say he has the 
education of a gentleman, and that he paints well. Such 
a man has no right to be lying on Chicksand Common, 
dressed like a tramp.” 

“It may be a diguise,” said Grace, more and more in- 
dignant; “ besides, you ought to remember that it is some- 
times more difficult for a gentleman to keep his head above 
water tfian for an agricultural laborer or a mechanic. 
Somebody says that the high-roads in Australia are made 
by university men. Education is a drug in the market 
everywhere.” 

“ The young man looks disreputable and dissipated.” 

“ He looks very ill,” said Grace. 

“ If he comes to Darnel this afternoon, you had better 
take him straight to the drawing-room, and introduce him 
to Sir Allan as your affianced husband, since you are so 
confident about him,” retorted the colonel, getting angry. 

“ That means that you wash your hands of me and my 
troubles,” said Grace, piteously. 

“It means that I will help you, if I possibly can. But 
I will not encourage you in a folly — a mistaken sense of 
honor and self-sacrifice. I love you so well, Grace, that if 
I thought this man were worthy of you, granting him to 
be a pauper, and if I knew your heart was set upon marry- 
ing him, I would use my strongest endeavors to reconcile 
your father to a bad match. But I have a shrewd sus- 


48 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


picion that the man is a scamp and a scoundrel, and I am 
very sure that in your heart of hearts you don’t care a 
straw for him. So I shall make it my business to arrange 
matters -civilly and liberally with the gentleman. And if 
you are only good and submissive, I believe I shall be able 
to tell you in a week that you are as free as the air.” 

“Dear — dearest colonel!” cried Grace, forgetting her- 
self. “ But you will not behave unkindly to poor Victor.” 

“I mean to treat him very handsomely. I will give 
him a fair start, with a nice little sum in hand, in a new 
country, at a considerable distance from Darnel Park.” 

“ But that will take a heap of money.” 

“The m^ney shall be forthcoming. You and I can 
square accounts when you are of age.” 

“ My best of friends.” 

“And when all is settled, and your Parisian friend has 
returned you those foolish letters, you can go to Sir Allan 
and tell him all about it very quietly. And then your 
mind will be at ease ever afterward.” 

“ It will be dreadful to tell papa,” said Grace ruefully. 
“ He will preach me such a sermon.” 

“ Even a sermon may be endured from so good a father,” 
replied the colonel, with a kindly smile, “and, after all, 
sermons are good things in their way.” 

“ Yes, I Avill tell him all, godfather, when Victor has 
released me from my promise; and if he should send me 
a letter, or come to the house, which he could hardly do, 
poor fellow, in that dreadful coat, I will let you know 
directly.” 

They put their horses at a trot, and followed Sir Allan 
and young Colchester, who had got a good start of them 
by this time, and there was no more confidential talk be- 
tween Grace and her godfather. i 

The dining-room at Darnel looked a delightful haven 
after a morning in dewy fields and damp copses, on breezy 
commons, and over wide uplands. The old hearth, with 
its dog-stove and brass furniture, the hissing urn, the 
loaded sideboard, the table bright with chrysanthemums 
and scarlet geraniums, and the" fine old Swansea breakfast 
service — everything looked inviting — while the mistress of 
the house, in her neat, olive-green cashmere gown and 
linen collar was the most charming object in the room. 
Lady Darnel was not one of those picturesque matrons 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


49 


who come to’breakfast in a flowing satin robe, trimmed 
with ostrich plumage. She had not yet risen to that loose 
and shapeless splendor of attire, which takes its inspira- 
tion from Japanese screens, and finds its material in 
Oriental bazaars. Neat and trim, and thoroughly En- 
glish, she smiled upon her husband in a gown which might 
have cost from two to three pounds. 

Those plain toilets only vexed Dora Darnel, who had 
secret yearnings for the Japanese, and had not courage to 
indulge them in the face of Lady Darnel’s simplicity. 
Her mind was also exercised as to what Lady Darnel did 
with her pin-money, which was large. She certainly did 
not spend it on dress, and if she disposed of it in works of 
charity, she was verily and indeed one of those excellent 
Christians whose left hand knows not what the right hand 
gives. 

Dora had discussed this subject many a time and oft 
with her particular friends, those people who had held 
themselves a little aloof from Lady Darnel, but who still 
adored Sir Allan’s incomparable sister. 

‘‘ My conviction is that Lady Darnel is making a purse,” 
she would conclude solemnly, as if it were altogether 
iniquitous to make purses. 

“But why, my ^ear Dora, why should" she do that, 
when you tell me Sir Allan has provided handsomely for 
her in the eveut of his death?” asked her friend. 

^'Most handsomely,” said Dora. “But for all that I 
believe she is makmg a purse. Some women are born 
misers.” 

Clare Darnel had not the air of a woman of miserly 
soul, as she sat at the head of the table this morning dis- 
pensing tea and coffee, and smiling upon her adoring hus- 
band, who had seated himself by her side. She looked 
brighter and happier than she had looked for a long time. 
The prospect of escape from her narrow surroundings, 
the idea of traveling with the man she tenderly loved, 
among new and beautiful scenes, was full of delight. She 
was not a weak woman, and she had met the coldness of 
her husband’s old acquaintances with a quiet scorn. She 
despised them 'for misjudging her — despised them for 
their inability to accept her for her own sake, for their 
petty, prejudices and suspicions. She knew that she 
might have been one of the worst women in England, her 


50 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


sms only falling short of law-court exposure, and yet if 
she had come to Darnel Park as the daughter of a great 
house, a personage, the county would have opened its arms 
to receive her. But she came to Darnel as a nobody, and 
all manner of evil was suspected about her. She had borne 
her isolation without a murmur, for she was a woman of 
infinite resources, and was in nowise dependent upon so- 
ciety for amusement or happiness; but she had been deeply 
grieved by the knowledge of her husband’s pain at the 
unfriendliness of those whom he had counted as his 
friends. 

And to turn her back upon this trouble, to go among 
strangers and strange scenery, to escape from those cold 
critical glances of Dora Darnel’s, this was indeed deliglit: 
such delight that the thought of it made her for the mo- 
ment forgetful of a deeper, darker trouble which had been 
weighing her to the ground of late — the one heavy burden 
of her life, a burden that she had set herself to endure in 
secret. 

That breakfast after the cub-hunting was a most genial 
meal. Edward Colchester was as hungry as the proverb- 
ial hunter, and eat and talked with a most cheerful clat- 
ter, his talk naturally being a recapitulation of the morn- 
ing’s work, and of other mornings; what they had done 
and what they ought not to have done; whether one par- 
ticular fox was the hunted fox, or a new fox — a point 
nicely debated, as exemplifiied by the conduct of the said 
fox, between Mr. Colchester and the colonel. Even 
Grace brightened and joined in the conversation, and 
showed herself wonderfully an fait as to the little ways 
and devices of old dog foxes, and the haunts and manners 
of cubs. 

‘‘ You have such eyes,” exclaimed Colchester,* rapt- 
urously, believe you know every earth within thirty 
miles.” 

‘‘I ride and drive about a good deal, and one can not 
help using one’s eyes,” said Grace modestly. 

I know you have helped me to find some of our best 
foxes,” replied Colchester. “By the bye, there is fox- 
hunting some where near Rome, isn’t there?” 

“In the Campagna,” suggested the colonel. 

“Well, now, if their season only began after ours was 


OUT Bt THE COUNTY. 


SI 

over 1 might meet you at Rome, Sir Allan, and we might 
have some sport in the Campagna, eh?” asked Colchester. 

It would be delightful. But Fm afraid an Italian 
April would be too warm for hunting.” 

By Jove, we have some deuced hot days here before 
we leave off,” said Colchester. But hunting or no hunt- 
ing, I shall join you in the spring, -if you’ll have me.” 

We shall be charmed to have 3mu,” said Lady Darnel. 

Quite a family party,” sneered Dora. 

She was just young enough to be jealous of her niece’s 
superior youth and prettiness. She had had her own 
chances, and had thrown them away, because they were 
not up to the level of her expectations; and now it galled 
her to see the lord of the manor at Grace’s feet, and to 
see Grace dallying with her conquest. 

“ I dare say she thinks him hardly good enough for 
her,” she thought. “ She expects some nobleman to fall 
in love with her wasp waist and her reckless riding.” 

Edward Colchester lingered till nearly luncheon time. 
He went to the stables with Sir Allan while Grace was 
changing her dress, and there was that general overhaul- 
ing of horseflesh which seems a source of perennial de- 
light, even to the grooms and lads who have to bear the 
heat and burden of bringing the animals out and trotting 
them up and down. And when the stable inspection was 
over, Grace was discovered on the terrace in front of the 
drawing-room, all bloom and freshness in her pretty walk- 
ing-gown, and at Mr. Colchester’s request she took him 
to see the conservatories and that superb collection of 
chrysanthemums which was the autumnal glory of Darnel 
Park. 

You’ll come too, won’t you, auntie?” said Grace, ap- 
pealingly. 

It\vas but rarely she called Dora auntie,” and the un- 
wonted tenderness seemed like a cry of distress. She 
would have done almost anything to escape a tete-a-tUe 
with the master of the hounds; she who was audacity 
itself in the field when she trotted up to him to give him 
little wrinkles as to the whereabouts of foxes. 

So Dora went the round of the glass-houses, and ex- 
plained the chrysanthemums to Edward Colchester, who 
found himself called upon to be interested in the different 
breeds, and rapturous about the Japanese varieties, and 


52 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


attentive to Dora Darnel at every point. It was altogether 
a disappointing business, and he fell into fearful yawnings 
before he had done. 

** You seem dreadfully sleepy,” said Dora. 

I was at the kennels at a quarter to four,” he mur- 
mured, apologetically. 

And you are dyiag to go liome for a nap,” said Dora. 

We won’t look at any more flowers to-day.” 

01), yes, let me see them all,” pleaded Colchester, 
clinging to a straw, still faintly hoping for a few words 
alone with Grace. 

But there was no detaching Grace from her aunt, and 
although young Colchester stayed till the luncheon gong 
sounded, he had to leave at last, without having spoken 
those few words. But it would be in his power to make 
another opportunity before Sir Allan carried his daughter 
off to the south, if he had made up his mind to speak 
those words. 


CHAPTER VI. 

^^LIFE-STIFLING FEAK, SOUL-STIFLING SHAME.” 

Grace spent the day in apprehension, expecting some 
sign from her betrothed — a letter delivered secretly — a 
messenger asking to see her — some token that he was near 
at hand, and had come to that neighborhood on her ac- 
count. As the day wore on without bringing any such 
token, her fears and perplexities increased rather than 
diminished. She thought that he was lying somewhere; 
under a hedge, or to leeward of a haystack perhaps; too 
ill, too weak to crawl to a better shelter; helpless, penni- 
less, friendless, sick and dying: while she who had Sworn 
to love and cherish him was lolling in a luxurious easy- 
chair, beside the bright hearth in her dainty little deii, 
surrounded by hothouse flowers, and new books, and an 
Erard piano, and all the best and prettiest things that 
money can buy. Her generous, tender heart, the heart 
which grieved even for slaughtered foxes, was sorely tortur- 
ed by the picture of this destitution, by the bitter contrast 
between her fate and his. It was not because she loved 
him that she was so sad for his sake. She no longer loved 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


63 


him. That foolish, romantic fancy of hers, horn of the 
idleness of a school-girFs life in a strange land, that child- 
ish dream, had died long ago. For nearly a year past that 
secret engagement had been a terror and a burden for her. 
She had longed ardently for some way of escape. She 
praj^ed lhat her godfather might succeed in undoing the 
knot she had tied for herself. Yet she could not put away 
the vision of that pale face, those haggard eyes and hollow 
cheeks; a face which to her troubled imagination seemed 
like the image of death itself. 

All through the long afternoon she sat in her own room, 
expectant, anxious, much too anxious to employ herself 
in any way, trembling at every footstep in the corridor, 
lest it should announce a messenger from Camillac, Five, 
six, seven o^clock struck from her little time-piece, and 
still there was no news. She had not gone down to the 
afternoon tea, shrinking from the sight of her father and 
Lady Darnel; but she knew that she must go down to din- 
ner, or else excite everybody’s wonder. She was not the 
kind of girl to take to her bed after an early run with the 
hounds. So she dressed and went down to the drawing- 
room, and went in to dinner with the rest of the family, 
and sat in torture all dinner-time, expecting, every time a 
footman approached her, that he was coming to deliver 
some mysterious message. But the dinner came to an end, 
and no such message reached her. 

Sir Allan began to yawn directly they got back to the 
drawing-room. He had been up to London and back the 
day before — he had been in the saddle at half-past four 
that morning. The colonel and Grace yawned in concert. 
It was a chorus of stifled yawns. 

If you hunting people are so sleepy, you had really 
better .go to bed,” exclaimed Dora, irritably. 

She was one of those objectionable persons wlio are never 
sleepy. She was in the habit of playing classical music to 
the family of an evening, and liked her people to listen 
and admire. 

Dora is right,” said Sir Allan. I am only a nuisance 
here, so I’ll say good-night.” 

The colonel and Grace followed suit. Lady Darnel said 
she had some letters to write, and would go to her own 
room to write them. She knew that even when he was 


54 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


sleeping her husband liked her to be near him; and heT 
pretty morning-room adjoined his bedroom. 

You won’t mind my deserting you, will you, Dora?” 
she asked sweetly, knowing that Miss Darnel detested 
early hours. 

Dora replied in her blandest tones. She could amuse 
herself for an hour or two with Beethoven, if the noise of. 
the piano would not disturb them upstairs. 

\Ye shall not hear it, but it would be very nice if we 
did,” said Lady Darnel. . j 

They all went away, and Dora had the spacious drawing- 
room all to herself. It was brightened by a glowing fire 
of coal and logs and by the light of lamps under colored 
shades, and it was beautified by masses of hothouse bloom 
in great majolica jars of blue, and yellow, and dull Indian 
red. It was in all respects as delightful a room as the 
heart of woman could desire; and yet its spaciousness gave 
an idea of desolation and abandonment when only one per- 
son was left in occupation. 

Dora began a rondo of Beethoven’s, but she played list- 
lessly, without fire, without expression, and before she had 
played three pages her fingers were lying idle on the keys 
as the player sunk into a deep reverie. 

She was roused from her thoughtful abstraction by a 
sound on the terrace outside — a sound that seemed like 
the tread of feet upon the gravel. She ran to one of the 
windows and lifted the edge of the blind, and looked out 
into the darkness, with her face close against the glass. 
The night was pitchy dark. She could see nothing. 

Then she opened the casement and listened intently for 
some minutes, but there was no recurrence of the sound 
which had startled her. 

Still she was not satisfied. She rang for a servant and 
told him to go out upon the terrace and see if tlrere was 
any one lurking about. 

^^I certainly heard footsteps,” she said, about ten 
minutes ago.” 

The footman had a faintly incredulous air, though he 
was too well bred to express his unbelief. He went into 
the ball, slowly and laboriously withdrew the bolts of the 
great door, strolled out upon the terrace, and walked about 
three yards in each direction. The night was so dark that 
a regiment might have been in ambush at either end of 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


55 


the terrace, and the footman would have been none the 
wiser. He came back to the drawing-room and assured 
Miss Darnel that there was not a mortal on the terrace or 
in the Italian garden; and then he went back to the serv- 
ants’ hall and enlarged upon Miss Darnel’s fidgety, pry- 
ing ways and love of late hours, while he finished his 
supper. 

‘‘ I suppose she’ll keep me hanging about till half after 
eleven before I can take those lamps away,” he grumbled. 

It was nearly eleven, and Sir Allan had not yet gone to 
bed. He had taken off his coat and put on a loose velvet 
jacket, and was smoking a cigarette in his wife’s morning- 
room. He always enjoyed being alone with her, always 
had something particular to say to her, some scheme or 
arrangement to discuss. He never knew weariness in her 
society, and even to-night, tired as he was, he was loath to 
go to bed without the customary talk. Since yesterday, 
his mind had been full of the Italian trip. 

And you are glad to go away with me?” he said. 

Very, very glad. ]\[ore glad than I can say.” 

‘‘ In that case you ought not to have waited for the doc- 
tor’s orders. Directly you felt a yearning for change of 
scene you ought to have told me to take you away.” 

I could not be so selfish, Allan, knowing how fond you 
are of Darnel.” 

I am fond of no place in which you are not happy.” 

“I have been very happy here — with you.” 

‘‘ Yes, you have been — at first, perhaps. You were 
happy here, and so was I — completely ha])py in the begin- 
ning of a new life. But you have not been happy lately, 
Clare. There has been something weighing on your 
mind; and I have a shrewd suspicion that it is the polar 
atmosphere of Darnel that has been freezing my darling’s 
tender heart.” 

‘^Oh, Allan, how can you think me so weak? What 
other society can I want when I have you?” 

But Sir Allan had made up his mind on the subject. 

“ Women are sensitive upon small matters,” he said. 
"‘Never mind, my dear, we shall be far away from the 
people who have slighted you, next week, beside the blue 
waters of the Mediterranean. The money is ready there 
in that cabinet-four hundred in circular notes, and wo 


56 


Cut by the county. 


can have plenty more when that is spent. Our Italian 
tour will be like a second honey-moon; and it shall be a 
long honey-rnoon.” 

He opened the cabinet while he was talking, and pulled 
out a drawer inside. It was an old Italian cabinet in 
ebony and ivory, full of curious little drawers and recesses. 
From one of the drawers Sir Allan took out the bundle of 
bank-notes, and looked at them, and fingered them like a 
child with a new toy, longing to be off and away, scatter- 
ing those notes at hotels and in the smart little shops of 
gay Continental watering-places. He meant this journey 
with his second wife to be one of delight for them both — 
for her the delight of strange places and lovely scenery; 
for him the rapture of seeing her happiness. He had 
written to an old club-house chum to secure a good 
courier. Lady Darnel would take her maid, and he his 
faithful old valet. Grace was young enough to shift for 
herself. 

He put the notes back into the open drawer, and took 
the revolvers from one of the recesses. They were packed 
in a neat little Eussia-leather case. He opened it and took 
out the pistols and descanted upon their beauty. 

‘^They are the prettiest things I have seen for an age,” 
he said. 

I hope you may have no occasion to use them, Allan,” 
answered his wife, averting her eyes witli a look of fear. 

- You don’t like to see them in my hand?” 

^‘I have a horror of all fire-arms.” 

My dearest, I forgot,” he cried, putting the revolver 
which he had been examining back into its case. 

He felt angry with himself for talking of the wretched 
thing, remembering that dark chapter in Clare’s life in 
which a gun had done such dreadful work. i 

His cigarette was finished by this time. He bent down' 
to kiss his wife as she sat at the writing-table. 

You will not stay up too late, dear?” he said. 

‘‘No; I have only a couple of letters to write — one to 
the dear old vicar, to tell him of our change of plan. He 
was to have come to us for a week before Christmas, don’t 
you know?” 

“Of course. He must come to us next May instead.” 

He went to the bedroom, which opened out of this 
sanctum of Lady Darnel’s, and left his wife bending over 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


67 


lier desk;, in the light of the reading-lamp. There was a 
large fire in the old-fashioned basket-grate, such a fire as 
a well-trained servant always makes on a mild evening, as 
if it were required to roast an ox, or, at least, a baron of 
beef. On coming into the room just now Lady Darnel’s 
first impulse had been to open one of the windows. They 
were French casement windows opening on to a broad 
wooden balcony, which was always well furnished with 
flowers summer and winter. At this season there were 
boxes of mignonette among the autumn flowers, and the 
perfume floated into the room on the cool night air. 

Sir Allan left the pistol-case open upon the center table, 
amongst a litter of magazines and newspapers, hie had 
been too well waited on all his life ever to have acquired 
the habit of putting things away. He left everything to 
be cared for by that inferior race whose duty it is to 
follow in the footsteps of a grand seigneur, and to protect 
his property from the consequence of his own carelessness. 

When her husband was gone, Clare Darnel looked up jit 
the clock on the mantel-piece. It was five minutes past 
eleven. She could hear doors being shut upon the ground- 
floor; all the sounds of a household retiring for the night. 

‘^I can take an hour before midnight,” she said to her- 
self, as she began the letter to the friend of her child- 
hood, that one trusted friend from whom she had no 
secrets. 

She had not been writing ten minutes when the window 
which had been left ajar was slowly pushed open, and a 
man stepped noiselessly into the room. She heard no 
footfall on the velvet pile, but went on writing, calm, 
beautiful in the lamplight, an image of domestic peace, 
the firelight shining on the dark folds of her satin gown. 
For some moments she wrote on, while the man stood 
watching her, holding his breath. Then she heard his 
breathing;, shork and quick, like a dog’s. She looked up 
in sudden fear, and saw a tall, wasted figure in a worn-out 
velveteen coat, a haggard face looking down at her. 

It was her husband’s face as she had seen it many a 
time after dissipated habits had ruined his health. It 
was her son’s face, aged by seven years’ apprenticeship 
since she had last looked upon those features. It was 
the face of the man whom Colonel Stukely and Grace had 
seen on the common. 


58 


CUT BY THE COUISTTY. 


Valentine,” she ejaculated in a half whisper, wringing 
her hands. How can you come here — like a thief in the 
night?” 

‘‘ How else can I come? It is the only fashion in which 
I am allowed to enter my mother’s house.” 

‘‘It is not my house. It is Sir Allan’s house, and you 
have no right to enter it without his permission. Oh, 
my God, what has come to you? How have you fallen 
into this despicable state, after the sums of money that I 
have- sent you?” 

“Tens and twenties dribbled out at odd times and sea- 
sons,” answered her son sulkily. “Money given in that 
fashion never does a man much good. I wanted capital 
to start in a new line. I had all manner of golden op- 
portunities if you would have helped me, as I wanted you 
to help me, at the right moment. But it was always the 
same story. You feared to trust me with a large sum of 
money. You, Lady Darnel, mistress of this house, talked 
of five hundred pounds as if it were half a million. Yon 
knew my disposition too well. The usual preachment. 
You would send me twenty pounds a month, and I must 
contrive to live respectably on it. Do you think in this 
go-a-head age a man can get a fair start in life ujDon a 
capital of five pounds?” 

“ I have sent you fifties and hundreds for your debts.” 

“ Yes, when I was on the brink of dangers that would 
have brought disgrace upon you and your swell husband.” 

“Valentine, how have you come to such a pass?” asked 
his mother, waving aside his reproaches, which were not 
new to her. “ You look like a beggar.” 

“ I look like what I am,” he answered sullenly. “ I 
have had a run of bad luck — cards, horses, everything has - 
gone wrong with me. Other men — cads, with half my 
brains — can win fortunes. I, with three times their edu- 
cation, only risk my wretched pittance to lose it. Do you 
think a man of my temper could be content to live upon 
five pounds week while there was a gaming-table or a race- 
course in the world on which he could try to quadru- 
ple it?” 

“A gambler, Valentinel Another of your father’s 
vices.” 

“ What else do I inherit from him? Not money, or 
position. And your d — n cleverness deprived me of even 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


59 


his name, I am always being asked to what Stuarts T be- 
long? What account can I give of myself, do you think? 
I would rather have been free to answer, ‘ I am Valentine 
Mackenzie, the son of, the man who drank himself mad, 
and shot the sentry at Mallow.’ ” 

“ You are cruel to the last degree — cruel to reduce your- 
self to this degraded position — cruel to creep into this 
house — cruel to me now as you were cruel when you were 
a boy — as your father was before you,” said Clare Darnel, 
beside herself with the agony of her fears; ^‘you have no 
riglit in this house, where there are only good people, 
people who fear God and respect themselves. You do 
neither. I say you have no right here.” 

And I tell you that wherever my mother is I have a 
right to be. I suppose you have kept my existence a 
secret. Your swell husband does not even know there is 
such a person: but by heaven he shall know.” 

He spoke in a hoarse, muffled voice, which grew louder 
with his indignation against fate and his mother. At 
any moment that sound of voices might awaken Sir Allan 
in the next room. Clare hurried to the door of communi- 
cation. It was shut. She drew across a velvet curtain 
which draped the door, and which would help to keep out 
the sound of those agitated voices. 

‘‘ He knows that I had a son,” she said, but when I 
married him I believed that you were dead, and that you 
had been lost in the 'Erl King.’ Although the happiness 
of my life depended upon that marriage, I would not have 
married him if I had known that you were living. Ho, 
by heaven, I loved him too well to bring such a curse upon 
him as a step-son with your vices.” 

" Well, he has me and my vices; and he and you had 
better make the best of me. What are you going to do 
for me, mother?” the tender name was uttered with a 
cynical laugh. 

" What can I do? If I give you money, you will throw 
it away on a racecourse or at a gambling-table: whatever 
I do for you it all comes to the same thing. You will 
drink, squander, and degrade yourself to the condition in 
which you come to me to night, the condition of a beg- 
gar.” 

" Because you never give me enough money. Give me 


60 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


a round sum — three or four hundred pounds, for instance 
— tliat would start me in a new country.’’ 

How often have you talked of starting afresh, prom- 
ised to begin a new life?” questioned his mother, bitterly. 
“I gave you a hundred pounds to furnish an apartment 
in Paris. You were to study art, and were to live as 
other students live there — cheaply, unpretentiously, till 
you could earn your own maintenance. For a few months 
things seemed to be going well with you. I hoped you 
were living comfortably on the twenty pounds a month 
which I sent you. Then came a long story of difficulties, 
debts of honor, a mysterious entanglement which miglit 
lead to exposure in the newspapers, and I had to send 
another hundred pounds. You have drained me of the 
income^y generous husband settled on me, and which I 
told him was three times too much for my wants. I have 
been sneered at, talked about, for spending so little 
money, for dressing less handsomely than other women in 
my position dress.” 

You look an object of compassion at this moment,” 
said her son, surveying her with a diabolical sneer. 

Her plainly made black satin dinner-gown, becoming 
in its severe simplicity, seemed to him the height of 
luxury. It was not for him to know that the gown had 
been worn two winters. Men of his stamp always think 
a woman is well enough dressed so long as her gown holds 
together. The wives of such men are supposed to have 
no right of complaint while their clothes are wind and 
weather proof. 

Lady Darnel took her portemonnaie from her pocket. 

Here are six sovereigns and some silver, V'alentine,” 
she said, offering him the contents, ‘^all I have in the 
world, or am likely to have, until Christmas.” 

He took the money carelessly, indifferently. 

It will be very little good,” he said, ^‘beyond getting 
me a week’s lodging, a slop suit in which I shall look a 
little worse than in these rags. I tell you that what I 
want — the only thing that can do me any good — is a round 
sum of money. I know of a splendid opening. A friend 
of mine owns a vineyard near Cadiz. It only wants work- 
ing to produce as fine a sherry as the best that is made in 
tlie district. And he would take me into partnership if I 
could give him three or four hundred on the nail, and 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


61 


could pledge myself to produce as much more a year 
hence. Tliat would mean, not a beggarly pittance, but a 
trade, a fortune. You would not be ashamed to own a 
wholesale dealer in Spanish wines for your son.* The 
trade is reputable, even if the wines are doctored. Come, 
mother, doidt tell me you can’t find this money. You 
have but to ask Sir Allan.” 

I will not ask him. No, Valentine, even if I believed 
in the possibility of your redemption I would not ask that 
generous man to give me more money, when of his own 
accord he has given me three times too much for all my 
reasonable requirements. But I have no hope of your re- 
form. I know that if I gave you three hundred pounds 
to-night it would go just as the other money has gone. 
'I’lie utmost I will do for yon, the uttermost that duty 
constrains me to do, is to provide you with the means of 
living decently from week to week. That I will do, and 
no more. And even to do that I shall have to borrow 
money. Your demands have completely exhausted my 
resources.” 

Very good. Then I must have recourse to some one 
else. There is a lady in this house upon whom my claim 
is second only to my claim upon you.” 

‘VA lady in this house?” repeated Clare, aghast with 
wonder. 

Grace Darnel is my affianced wife. I believe a man 
has some kind of claim upon the w'oman who has promised 
to marry him.” 

‘^My step-daughter, Grace, affianced to you, to you, 
Valentine Mackenzie! You must be mad to say such a 
thing.” 

This statement may sound preposterous, but it is true. 
Miss Darnel took it into her head to work at the Louvre 
just at the time I was working there. You think very 
likelv that I never did so work, that my art education 
was altogether a sham. But there you belie me. I 
worked lionestly enough till I got sick of an impossible 
profession. No matter. I was attracted by the young 
lady’s appearance, was able to pay her some small atten- 
tion, and saw that she was pleased with me. I contrived 
to question her duenna. I heard that she was Miss 
Darnel, of Darnel Park— an heiress. The imbroglio be- 
came interesting, and I determined to try my chances 


62 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


wiili Miss Darnel, whom I really admired more than any 
girl I had seen for an age.” 

What an honor for Grace!” 
contrived, to get upon confidential terms with her, 
and soon found the key to her heart. She is a generous 
high-spirited girl, full of romance. Just the girl to think 
the world well lost for love. We were desperately in love 
with each other. A sharp attack of — of — an old complaint 
of mine brought me to death’s door.” 

Was it your father’s malady, the dire disease that 
comes from mtemperance, Valentine?” asked his mother, 
looking at him intently, seeing only too plainly in his 
haggard face the same indications which she had seen so 
often in the face of her dead husband. 

No matter what it was, I wrote to Miss Darnel from 
my sick-bed. She answered as a true-hearted girl might 
be expected to answer. She promised to be my wife. I 
have that promise under her own hand. She will be of age 
in a year. And as soon as she is of age and her own mis- 
tress I shall claim the fulfillment of that promise.” 

‘‘Does she know who you are?” 

“ Well, not exactly. When you are in Eome do as the 
Koraans do, says the proverb. When I was in Paris I was 
a Fr(?nchman. One alias is as good as another. In Paris 
I was not Valentine Stuart, but Victor de Oamillac.” 

“And you come to this house — an adventurer, an im- 
postor, a swindler — to claim the promise made by a credu- 
lous girl, your dupe and victim. You, my son, would do 
this thing. This is the deepest disgrace you have threat- 
ened me with yet!” 

“ It is for you to work out the problem so as to avoid dis- 
grace. Give me three or four hundred pounds and I will 
start for Cadiz to-morrow, to return a year hence as a re- 
spectable merchant, and to claim my betrothed. She will 
pardon my change of name and nationality, if I can stand 
before her as a gentleman and your son. She is so fond of 
you that the relationship will be an additional claim to her 
regard.” 

“ Do not think that I w'ill ever sanction any engagement 
between you and Grace. Not if you could struggle out of 
the abyss into which your degrading habits have sunk you — 
not even if you could come here in outward seeming a gen- 
tleman, Never would I sanction the union of that good amt 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


63 


true-hearted girl with your father’s son. The cup of de 
spair which I drained to the dregs sliall never be offered 
to her while I have power to' prevent that infamy. 
Sir Allan knows what you were as a boy. If the worst 
come to the worst, he shall know what you are as a man.” 

Wouldn’t it be wiser for your own sake if you were to 
temporize — let me go to Spain, workout my own redemp- 
tion, and return worthy of Grace — and of you? I will do 
it, mother, if you will trust me.” 

He laid his hand upon his mother’s shoulder, he looked 
at her pleadingly as she stood with clasped hands, an im- 
age of despair. It was the first time that he had touched 
her since they entered; he, the son whom she had not 
seen for seven years. 

I can not trust you,” she answered, not in unkind- 
ness, but in despair. ‘‘I have been too often deceived. I 
know your nature too well. I will do what I can for you, 
but it must be in my own way. Oh, Valentine, why do 
you follow in the fatal road that your father trod to his 
doom? The habits of the drunkard and the gambler 
ruined him, and they will ruin you if you do not reform. 
Think of his dreadful end — a murdereiva lunatic. Be 
warned in time. No, my poor son, it is not yet too 
late. I will help you. I will visit you, befriend you in 
every way, if you will only show a real purpose of amend- 
ment. And now, for pity’s sake, leave this house, before 
Sir Allan overhears anything. Are you lodging in the 
village?” 

I have been lodging under hedges and haystacks since 
yesterday evening. When I landed at Newhuven yester- 
day morning I had just enough to pay for a third-class 
ticket to Scadleigh. I have been roaming about ever: 
since with empty pockets and an empty stomach, watch-' 
ing for a chance of an interview with you or Grace.” 

‘‘ Thank God, you did not see Grace — in this dreadful 
plight. Poor creature — poor unhappy boy,” said Lady 
Darnel, glancing at the clock. Ten minutes to twelve; 
they will hardly have gone to bed at the Coach and 
Horses, for they seldom close until after eleven. You 
had better go there, and get a room for the night. There 
is a sheltered lane at the back of the inn garden — a narrow 
lane with tall hedges. I will meet you there at seven to- 
morrow morning, and we can talk quietly, we can make 


64 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


soiii« plan for your future. And now, go. There is not 
a moment to be lost, if you want to get shelter to-night.’’ 

don’t want to sleep under a hedge,” he said, sul- 
lenly, moving slowly toward the window, reluctant, un- 
decided. 

At this moment the door leading into the corridor was 
opened a little way, and a sweet girlish voice said, 

Mother, are you still up? 

Lady Darnel rushed to the door, and met Grace before 
she could enter the room. 

‘‘ Yes, dear child,” she said, going out into the corridor, 
and shutting the door behind her. “ Oh, Grace, why are 
you not in bed? It is close upon midnight, and you were 
up at four.” 

I couldn’t sleep a wink if I went to bed. Mayn’t I 
come into your room for a few minutes’ chat?” 

Not to-night. It is too late.” 

‘‘ How pale you are, mother! Are you ill?” 

No, no, not ill, only a little tired. I have sat up too 
long. Now, Grace, I shall take you back to your room, 
and you must go to bed instantly.” 

The girl was -in her dressing-gown, her splendid brown 
hair hanging loose upon her shoulders. Lady Darnel put 
her arm round her and led her along the corridor. Grace’s 
and the visitors’ rooms were at tlie end of the house, just 
beyond those inhabited by Sir Allan and Lady Darnel. 
These three had exclusive occupation of this southern 
wing. The central portion of the first floor was taken up 
by a picture gallery and a billiard-room. Miss Darnel’s 
rooms were in the northern wing. 

What has made you so wakeful, Gracie?” asked Clare, 
when she had taken the girl back to her room. 

Grace hesitated for a few moments, looking at the 
ground, and playing nervously with the lace frilling of her 
-dressing-gown. 

She was longing to tell all her troubles to her step- 
mother, yet dared not. Fear of her father’s anger kept 
her dumb. 

Oh, I don’t know,” she said. Perhaps it was the 
exciting idea of our Italian tour. At any rate, I couldn’t 
sleep, and I thought if you were up I should like to have 
a talk. But you are too tired, and you ought to go to bed. 
You are as white as a ghost.” 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


65 


Yes, I am very tired. Good-night, dear child.” 

Good-night, mother,” and with an affectionate kiss 
they parted. 

Lady Darnel did not go hack to her room immediately. 
She wanted time — first, to be sure that Grace did not fol- 
low her; secondly, to recover her coolness of brain, to con- 
sider quietly and calmly, if possible, what was to be done 
with this foolish son of hers. He would have gone when 
she went back to her room, perhaps; or, if he had not 
gone, she would be better able to reason with him after a 
few minutes’ quiet. 

She walked up and down the corridor two or three 
times, thinking deeply, trying to hit upon some line of 
conduct which might save Grace and reclaim the prodigal. 
Grace must on no account know that her lover was in the 
neighborhood. Girls are so foolish. His wretched con- 
dition would appeal to her pity. There is no knowing 
into what foolishness she might be entrapped. 

The stable clock and the church clock struck twelve — 
the last with silvery, solemn tone, heard from afar across 
the elms and oaks, the dells and slopes where the cattle 
were lying arrest. Lady Darnel took one turn more. 

‘^Hark! What can that be?” 

Ho doubt as to what it was. The report of a pistol. 
"What it meant was another thing. 

For a moment or so Clare Darnel stood motionless with 
terror. Then there came the thud of a heavy fall. 

It is in my room,” cried Clare, beside herself with ap- 
prehension, remembering the revolvers in their case on the 
table, the open case with dark red velvet lining glowing in 
the lamp-light. She had looked at it absently while Val- 
entine was talking to her— looked at it with mind so ab- 
stracted as never to consider how fatal a thing a revolver 
may be. 

“ He has killed himself!” she cried, distractedly. 

She rushed to her room, tearing at the door with con- 
vulsive hands, which made the mere turning of the handle 
seem a work of time and diflBcnlty. She expected to see 
her reprobate son stretched upon the floor and weltering 
in his blood. She knew not that a worse evil had befallen 
her. 

She went into the room. The casement was wide open, 
and the night wind vvas blowing in scattering the papers 


66 


CUT BY THE COUN’TT. 


on her writing-table. The door- way leading into the 
bedroom was open, the velvet portiere pulled aside, and 
Allan Darnel was lying across the threshold, bleeding, 
dead, as his wife thought, in the supreme agony of that 
moment. 

Wliile she stood looking at him, with clasped hands, 
his daughter rushed into the room, and saw what had 
liappened. 


CHAPTER VII. 

AS FROM A DREAM OF MURDER.” 

Grace’s shrieks rang through the silent house. The 
wife flung herself on the ground by her husband’s side, 
voiceless, in a dumb agony, clinging to the prostrate form, 
kissing the pallid face, imploring for a word, a look. 

He was loosely dressed in trousers, an^ velvet dressing- 
gown, dressed like a man who had risen hastily at a 
strange sound, prepared to face a midnight intruder. His 
wife opened his dressing-gown and laid her ear against his 
breast. Yes, the heart was beating still— feebly, as it 
seemed to her, a beat which might dwindle into silence 
at any moment, a thread of life that might snap while she 
listened. 

Servants came, sleepy, confused, all talking at once. 
Then, Dora Darnel, very delicate and dainty in a flowing 
white garment with pale pink ribbons; then the colonel, 
in an old red velvet dressing-gown, which made him look 
like a wizard. 

‘‘ For God’s sake, let some one go for the doctor,” said 
Clare, without lifting her head; then, as Stukely knelt on 
the other sideof his friend’s prostrate form, Oh, colonel, 
you can help us^ You will know. Is it a dangerous 
wound? Does it mean death?” 

‘‘ Hot death, no, no. God forbid,” said the colonel. 
^^It is a nasty wound; terrible loss of blood. The bullet 
has hit rather low, just below the ribs. What was he 
doing with that accursed revolver?” 

I don’t know. They were on the table. He was look- 
ing at them an hour ago, before he went to bed.” 

You don’t know?” said the colonel, wonderingly. 

Weren’t you in the room when it happened?” 


CUT BY THET COUI^TY. 67 

No. I was in the corridor. I had been in Grace’s 
room.” 

He was alone then?” 

“ I — I suppose so.” 

Oh my poor, poor brother,” ejaculated Dora. To 
think that he should have lifted his hand to take away 
his own life. He, so good a Christian; he, who used to be 
so happy.” 

How dare you say that he tried to take his own life?” 
said Clare, not loudly, but with intense indignation. 

You know that he is happy; that he has never known a 
care since he has been my husband, except his too thought- 
ful care for me. Oh, my darling, what evil things will 
not be said of me while your voice is silent to defend,” 
she added, apostropliizing her unconscious husband with 
passionate love. 

There will always be a voice to defend you — were de- 
fense needed — while Allan’s friend is at your side,” said 
the colonel, quietly. 

Purdew, the old butler, was in the room, kneeling by 
his master. He too had seen gunshot wounds, and he knew 
that this was a desperate one. With his help Colonel 
Stukely could have carried his old friend into the next 
room and laid him on his bed, but after a murmured con- 
sultation they agreed that it was wiser not to lift him un- 
til the surgeon came. The loss of blood might be intensi- 
fied by any alteration of position. Lady Darnel brought a 
pillow for her husband’s head. A servant brought some 
brandy, an4 the colonel wetted Sir Allan’s lips with a lit- 
tle, while Lady Darnel damped his forehead with eau-de- 
cologne. But there were no signs of returning conscious- 
ness. 

A groom had ridden off for the doctor. They heard 
the clatter of hoofs just now galloping along the avenue; 
but let him gallop as he might, it must be more than half 
an hour before the doctor could arrive. The colonel and 
Purdew did all that could be done to stanch the blood 
which oozed slowly from Sir Allan’s side. It was a ter- 
rible half-hour, a half-hour of agony, in which every mo- 
ment might bring the fatal end of their fainting hopes. 

Clare Darnel crouched upon the ground beside her 
husband, hanging over him with white lips and despaiiN 


68 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


ing eyes, wfifcching Iiis ghastly face with a countenance 
that was almost as death-like. 

He will die,’’ she kept saying to herself; he will die 
by the hand of my son. Oh, God! why did I ever link 
my accursed life with his?” 

Her mind went back to that other night of murder, the 
report of the gun ringing sharp in the silence of night, 
startling her from the heavy slumber of sheer exhaustion 
— the moment of bewilderment and doubt, then the rush 
to the window to see what had happened. The picture of 
that vanished scene flashed back upon her as she hung 
over her husband. The moonlit barrack-yard — doors 
open, lights appearing, dark figures crossing tlie quad- 
rangle, and then a figure carried across the yard by four 
men. Her first thought had been that it was her hus- 
band’s figure she saw thus carried — that he had escaped 
from his room and killed himself. She was to know soon 
that the calamity was even worse than this. And now 
came a second tragedy; a dire and horrible deed which 
was perhaps to desolate her life forever. At last there 
came the sound of horses’ hoofs again, galloping up the 
avenue — two horses this time, and sounding in the night 
silence like six — then the opening of doors below, and then 
footsteps in the corridor, and the doctor was amidst them, 
a stout, elderly man, commonplace, but clever, a man to 
be relied on in calamity. 

He put them all aside and knelt down on one knee to 
examine his patient; and then, without expressing any 
opinion, he ordered every one out of the room except the 
colonel and Purdew. 

Grace, take care of Lady Darnel,” said the colonel, 
and Grace put her arm round her stepmother and tried to 
lead her from the room, the girl blinded by her tears, tlie 
woman’s eyes dry and burning. She had not yet shed a 
tear. 

“ No, Grace,” she said, I will not go away. If I must 
not stay in this room, I will wait in the corridor. I will 
not go far from Allan.” 

At the mere mention of her husband’s name she burst 
into a flood of tears, the first relief that had come to her 
since that first shock of her reprobate son’s entrance. 

It was in vain that Grace pleaded, in- vain that Dora 
lectured. Glare Darnel would not move beyond the ouG 


CUT BY THE COUHTY, 


69 


side of the morning-room door. She knelt with her ear 
against the key-hole, knelt there, listening, and praying 
dumbly now and then, till the doctor came out, after a 
delay of an hour or more. 

Will he die?” she asked, seizing the doctor’s arm. 

Mr, Danvers, the family doctor, looked grave, and shook 
his head. 

It is a had case. Lady Darnel.” 

But not hopeless — oh, for God’s sake say it is not 
hopeless!” 

“We shall have Mr. Friedricson here to-morrow morn- 
ing,” answered the doctor. “He can tell you better 
than I.” 

“And my beloved one may die in the night, before help 
comes. Let me go to him— let me be with him.” 

“ No, Lady Darnel, that is impossible. He must be 
kept very quiet — there must be no one in the room except 
Purdew and me. I shall stay here all night.” 

“ Thank God for that! But it is cruel to keep me away 
from him. Do you think I am a child, that I have no 
self-command?” 

“ I think you are a woman, and that you love your hus- 
band. No, Lady Darnel, you must not enter that room 
till Sir Allan is in a less precarious state. You must obey 
me in this matter — for his sake. I am going to send -one 
of your men with a message to my wife, and then I shall 
go back to Sir Allan. We shall have a couple of surgical 
nurses down to-morrow morning.” 

Clare Darnel wrung her hands in silent despair. She 
turned from the doctor and walked quickly to the end of 
the corridor. Like King David she turned her face to the 
wall. She felt that there was no comfort — no relief. Her 
husband was taken away from her— given over to nurses 
and surgeons, and she was told that she must not enter his 
room. Her sacred right as his wife was set at naught. 
Death itself could not have robbed her more utterly of his 
presence. To sit beside his bed, to watch the changes of 
his face, to listen to every breath— there would have been 
comfort in this. But she was to have no comfort. She 
stood leaning against the molding of the window-frame 
at the end of the corridor with her face to the wall. 

“My son, my son!” she repeated to herself. “I ought 
never to have married that good man. I was fSelfish, 


70 


CUT UY THE COUNTY. 


wicked, blind, to link my miserable lot with his. I am 
the cause of his death.” 

Grace came from her room, where she had been sitting 
witli her aunt, who had established herself there uninvited, 
‘‘to he nearer poor Allan.” 

“Dear rnotlier, come to my room; come and lie down 
on my bed,” pleaded Grace; and the word mother sounded 
sweet in Clare Darnel’s ears, even in the midst of her 
despair. The girl’s tenderness recalled that revelation of 
Valentine’s. 

“ No, my darling, your life shall not be blighted,” she 
sobbed, drawing Grace to her breast. “You shall not be 
sacrificed to worthlessness and profligacy.” 

The strange speech startled Grace. What could it 
mean? Could Lady Darnel know- — or suspect anything 
about her luckless lover — the man she had seen on the 
common that morning? 

She succeeded in getting Lady Darnel to her room, 
where Dora was sitting ]nously, before an open Testament, 
reading the history of St. Paul’s shipwreck, and how the 
viper came out of the fire and hung upon his arm. It 
could hardly be particularly comforting in such a moment; 
but Dora fled to her Bible in calamity as a'duty. She did 
not even wait for calmness and order around her, but sat 
down in the midstof chaos and read the first chapter that 
came to hand, in a thoroughly business-like way. By this 
means she had acquired a stupendous battery of texts, with 
which she was always ready to open fire in argument or 
warning. 

In Dora’s mind even the viper that came out of the 
fire was not altogether inapplicable to the present state of 
affairs. 

“ My poor brother has had a viper hanging upon him,” 
she said to herself. “I knew that misery would come out 
of that marriage, but I did not think that it would take 
the form of bloodshed.” 

Lady Darnel consented to lie down on a sofa wheeled 
near the fire, to please Grace rather than from any hope of 
relief to be obtained from repose. A rug was sj)read over 
her, and she lay silent, with eyes closed. The other two 
women might suppose she was sleeping. 

“ Had you not better go to your own room. Aunt Dora?” 
said Grace, a little worried by the sight of that calm 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


•n 

white-robed figure and the open Bible. Grace was firm 
in religious faith and reverence for the Scriptures; but she 
could not seat herself down to read Uie Acts of tlie 
Apostles with folded hands in the midst of a domestic 
convulsion. 

“It is nearly two o’clock, Aunt Dora. Do go to your 
own room,” she said, hardly concealing her irritation. 

“ No, Grace, I like to be near Allan. My own room is 
at the other end of the house. I hope I am not in your 
way here?” 

“ Not at all,” said Grace, shortly; and then she got up 
and went out to the corridor and listened at her father’s 
door. 

Not a sound. But he might die, and she would hear 
no more than she heard now. It was all so sad, so inex- 
plicable. Her father at death’s door; he who had kissed 
her and bade her good-night fin his cheeriest voice only a 
few hours ago. How had it happened? She had hardly 
been calm enough even to wonder about it until now; but 
now she began to ask herself how this tragedy had come 
to pass. 

Could it be the result of accident? Her father, an old 
cavalry soldier, the hero of two Indian campaigns — was 
such a man likely to be playing with fire-arms as children 
and Cockneys play with such things? Was he likely to 
handle a revolver so ignorantly or so awkwardly as to 
lodge its contents in his side? And again she had under- 
stood that Sir Allan had gone to bed, and that Lady Dar- 
nel was writing alone in her room wherv she, Grace, 
knocked at the door. 

She longed to see her dear old colonel. He, perhaps, 
might have told her something; yet what could he know 
more than she, since he had only appeared on the scene 
after the catastrophe. 

She walked up and down the corridor for half an hour 
or more, till the cold drove her back to her room. It was 
very cold in that dead hour of the night, and poor Grace 
was" shivering in her muslin dressing-gown when she went 
back to her room. 

Dora Darnel was sitting by the fire, just as Grace had 
left her, steadily plowing through the Acts, as if she 
had been a divinity student preparing for an examination. 
L.idy Darnel lay with her face hidden, motionless, silent. 


TZ CUT BY THE COUKTY. 

she asleep?’’ inquired Grace, in a low voice. 

^‘1 believe so.” 

Grace threw herself on her bed, and cried herself to 
sleep — a troubled sleep, easily broken. She had slept thus, 
hardly for one moment losing the consciousness of her 
grief, when she was awakened by an agonizing cry. 

She started up from her pillow to see Dora Darnel 
standing beside the sofa in the dying firelight looking 
down at her brother’s wife. 

Clare was lying on her back, with her clasped hands 
above her head, her eyes wide open, and tlie eyeballs fixed 
in an awful stare. 

My fault, my fault,” she cried. I murdered him.” 

The aunt and niece looked at each other, appalled, hor- 
ror-stricken. These words were the words of a dreamer, 
and dreams are wildest fictions; but such words at such a 
moment had a thrilling effect. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

^^ALL WAS SILENT, ALL WAS GLOOM.” 

Frieuric Friedricson, the great surgeon, had come 
and had gone, and was to come again. So far he had 
been able to say few words of comfort or of hope. Sir 
Allan’s condition was so precarious that the surgeon had 
not dared to attempt the extraction of the bullet; and 
until that was extracted there could be little hope of re- 
covery. The symptomatic fever was more violent than is 
usual in such cases. The patient was delirious, sleepless, 
and unable to take nourishment. Altogether the case 
looked threatening. 

Lady Darnel’s slumbers had not lasted long after that 
awful dream of hers. At four o’clock in the morning she 
had awakened, and had gone to Grace’s dressing-room to 
give herself a cold bath, and to dress for the day. And 
now' it was late in the afternoon, and she had not closed 
her eyes since that troubled sleep on the sofa. 

The three women wandered about the house like three 
ghosts, so pale and wan and silent were they all. Grace 
turned to Colonel Stukely for her only comfort. Dora 
read her Bible at all times and seasons. Lady Darnel 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


73 


sought comfort from no one. ^She paced with noiseless 
footfall up and down the corridor outside her husband’s 
room for houVs at a stretch. She interrogated everybody 
who came out — the neatly clad nurse, in her prim cap and 
spotless apron; Danvers, the medical man; Purdew, tlie 
old military' servant. These were her only sources of 
comfort, and such comfort as they could give was mixed 
with gall. 

It was some relief to hear of her beloved, to know that 
he still lived. It was agony to know that the fever raged 
fiercely, that the delirium continued without abatement. 
He could recognize no one. What mattered who watched 
beside his bed, what hireling hands ministered to him? 

‘^He would know me,” said Clare, piteously; ‘^but they 
will not let me go to him.” 

My dear soul,” replied the Colonel, soothingly, he 
does not even know me, his old comrade of many a forced 
march. Why, he and I have ridden side by side over an 
Indian desert when we were nodding asleep in our saddles 
for sheer weariness. We were chums and companions for 
a quarter of a century, from Eton to the Penjaub, and 
yet he does not recognize me.” 

‘‘He would know his wife,” said Clare, with conviction. 

As the day wore on, she could hardly be induced to 
leave the corridor* Lunch, dinner, all conventional 
meals, were scorned by those three women; but it was 
only Lady Darnel who had not broken her fast by so much 
as a biscuit since the previous evening. But at last Grace 
beguiled her step-mother into her den, and made her sit 
by the fire and take some tea and bread and butter, 

“Do you want to be ill too, and make us still more un- 
happy?” said Grace, reproachfully. 

She had insisted on giving Lady Darnel her own bed- 
room, the door of which was opposite the sick-room, while 
she herself was to occupy a little bed hastily put up in the 
dressing-room. This arrangement was deeply resented by 
Dora. 

“I think if anybody has a right to be near Allan at 
such a time, it is I, his sister,” she said, when she and 
Grace were alone. 

“But surely. Aunt Dora, a wife’s right is above all 
others?” 

“ That depends upon the wife,” ' 


74 


CUT BY THE COUl^TY. 


‘^Then, if there caiube any such distinction, nobody 
can dispute my step-mother’s claim, for she is the most de- 
voted of wives.” 

She has a knack of seeming very devoted,” remarked 
Dora. 

Seeming, and a knack,” repeated Grace indignantly. 

How can you say such things. Aunt Dora? How dare 
you insinuate that my father’s wife is not true?” 

I insinuate nothing, Grace; and I am not going to be 
taken to task by a school-girl. I can only say that Lady 
Darnel is a mystery to me, just as she is a mystery to the 
county. Indeed, I may say that you are the only person 
who appears to understand her and believe in her.” 

‘‘ My father believes in her,” retorted Grace, more and 
more indignant. That is enough for me.” 

Your father is under the spell of a potent fascination, 
my dear. Have you never heard of a middle-aged widower 
subjugated by the maneuvers of a handsome widow — 
a widow whose antecedents are wrapped in profound 
darkness.” 

You are talking most unjustly. Aunt Dora; and what 
is more, you know that you are unjust. I wonder you 
don’t expect something to crawl out of your Bible and 
sting you. I wouldn’t sit with my Bible on my lap and 
spit venom at innocent people.” 

‘^If you can not control your tongue, Grace, I shall go 
to my own room,” said Dora, closing her Bible, and rising 
as if to depart. 

I shall be very much beholden to my tongue if it 
drives you there,” retorted Grace, upon which Miss Dar- 
nel had no option, and was obliged to carry out her 
threat; more especially as the room was Grace’s own par- 
ticular den, and she was only a visitor there. 

She departed, carrying her Bible and a large assort- 
ment of angry feelings with her. 

But she did not retire to the solitude of her own apart- 
ments in the north wing. Solitude is apt to be intolera- 
ble in these periods of suspense and anxiety. . Miss Darnel 
went down to the drawing-room, and on her way met a 
servant who was going upstairs to announce Mr. Col- 
chester. 

Ho was in the drawing-room, the man said, and wanted 
to see Lady Darnel, Miss Grace, anybody. 


CUT BY THB COUKTY. ^6 

Dora felt that she came under the head of anybody, so 
she hurried to the drawing-room, eager to be e7i rapport 
with the county; though, indeed, in spite of his splendid 
position, she always looked upon Edward Colchester as 
in somewise an outsider. He was so good-natured, so 
hail-fellow-well-met with all the world, so little governed 
by the Draconian laws of county society. 

She found him in the drawing-room, in hunting clothes, 
fidgeting about with a whip in his hand, just as if he had 
that moment dismounted to rest his hunter’s back during 
a pause in the morning’s work. 

‘‘ My dear Miss Darnel,” he cried, seizing her hand, 

what a dreadful thing this is. Been out with Colonel 
Thorpe’s harriers; only just heard it on my way home, or 
should have been here before. How did it happen? Is 
he very bad? How is Grace?” 

He forgot himself in his agitation, and said Grace tout 
court. 

It is a long story, Mr. Colchester, and it is a profound 
mystery. We none of us know what it all means yet. 
My poor brother is in a most precarious state. I fear we 
will lose him.” 

Here the tears rushed to her eyes, and they were not 
crocodile tears. If she hated her brother’s wife, she loved 
her brother; and though she could not bear to see him 
happy in his second marriage — nay, resented that second 
marriage as if it were a deadly wrong done to herself — 
she could not calmly contemplate the possibility of losing 
him. 

Don’t cry,” said Colchester, very much inclined to be 
tearful himself. ‘‘Things are never so bad as they look. 
Doctors are such regular old ravens, don’t you know. 
They like to frighten us out of our wits in order to take 
credit for their wonderful cleverness when the patient 
pulls through. ‘ We pulled him through,’ they say, and 
then we poor fools pay their big bills without blinking. 
But for goodness’ sake tell me how it happened. Sir Allan 
shot himself, they say; late last night, after you had all 
gone to bed.” 

“Not^?ZZ,” said Dora. “Lady Darnel sat up late to 
write letters. She was still up at the time it happened.” 

“Then she must know all about it.” 

“ She appears to know nothing. She had been to 


76 CUT BY THE COUN'J;^.' 

Grace’s room. She was in the corridor when she heard 
the pistol go off.” 

‘^And Sir Allan was alone in his room?” 

So it appears. He had gone to bed an hour before. 
He must have got up and gone back to Lady Darnel’s 
morning-room, where he had left the case of revolvers on 
the table. Why he should have got up and half-dressed 
liimself, and gone back to get those pistols, is an un- 
fathomable mystery.” 

He may have heard burglars — or fancied he heard 
them,” suggested Colchester. Some men are always on 
the qid vive for burglars — sleep with life-preservers under 
their pillows. They might burgle all round my house 
and I should never hear ’em; but I know it is a weak- 
ness with some men. How do you know that there wasn’t 
tx burglar there? He may have shot Sir Allan.” 

Dora shook her head. 

I do not believe it was a burglar. If there had been 
any one in the house — any scuffle between Sir Allan and a 
robber — Lady Darnel must have heard it. She was in the 
corridor when the pistol went off.” 

Then how do you solve the mystery?” 

“ It is my painful conviction that the deed was either 
murder or suicide.” 

“Suicide!” exclaimed Colchester. “ Out of the ques-' 
tion. Why, there wasn’t a happier fellow in Wilts than 
Sir Allan; the cheeriest, the kindest, the most genial of 
men !” 

“ Kind, genial, I admit,” said Dora, “ but I know my 
brother better than any one else can know him, I was his 
companion and confidante from the time I left school till 
the day he married his second wife. I do not believe that 
he has been happy of late. His marriage was not a satis- 
factory marriage. Even if he himself could have felt 
thoroughly satisfied — which I do not think he ever did — 
he knew that the county was dissatisfied with his choice. 
He knew that the cloud of mystery which surrounded 
Lady Darnel’s antecedents cast a dark shadow upon an 
'old and honored family. People might like and esteem 
him, but they could not esteem a woman of whom they 
were told nothing, who was foisted upon them without a 
word of explanation. And so they naturally fell away 
from their old friend; and, although my brother pre- 


CtJl: BY THJ0 COtJNTY. W 

tended to take the matter lightly, I believe that he was 
cut to the quick.” 

‘‘The county are a set of snobs, said young Col- 

chester, swallowing an evil word. with a wry face. “ Why 
couldn’t they take such a splendid woman as Lady Dar- 
nel on trust?” 

“ My dear Mr, Colchester, I am thankful to know that 
in good society no one is ever taken on trust,” replied 
Miss Darnel. “ What could society be like if people 
were?” 

“ Perhaps a good deal pleasanter than it is now,” re- 
torted the reprobate squire, who troubled himself much 
less about the antecedents of an acquaintance than about 
the pedigree of a fox-hound. 

“ No, Mr. Colchester,” continued Dora Darnel, “ my 
poor brother has not been happy of late. There are 
mysterious circumstances connected with his marriage 
that I have not been able to fathom; but I am not a 
fool, and in spite of all outward appearances I have seen 
enough to know that Allan is not happy. This sudden 
idea of going off to- winter in Italy is so unlike him — such 
a complete breaking up of the life he loves— that the 
notion could only have arisen out of a disturbed state of 
mind.” 

“ But, my dear Miss Darnel, the physicians ordered — ” 
interrupted Colchester. 

“ Physicians may be inspired to order anything. They 
are often only the mouth-pieces of their patients. If this 
dreadful event is not the work of my brother’s own hand, 
in an interval of despair, why, then, we have to look for a 
still darker solution of the mystery, and to ask where is 
the murderer?” 

“ I say burglar,” protested Colchester. “ Sir Allan 
heard a man in the room next his own, got up, put on his 
coat, challenged the man. Burglar saw revolvers on table, 
snatched up one and shot Sir Allan — or shot him with a 
revolver of his own just as likely.” 

“ Would a burglar enter a room in wdiich there were two 
lamps burning — a room evidently occupied?” 

“ Burglars have cheek enough for any tiling. No doubt 
Lady Darnel keeps her jewels in her bedroom; women 
always do.” 

Miss Darnel shrugged her shoulders, with the air of de- 


CtJT BY THE COUNTY. 


dining to waste any more time in argument with a person 
of Mr. Colchester’s limited intellect. 

I should very much like to see Grace/’ he said, getting 
very red and faltering a little, if she is not too bad to see 
any one.” 

She may not be too bad to see you,” replied Dora. 

I dare say her taste for hunting will survive the calami- 
ty that has fallen upon . us.” 

True,” answered Colchester, simply. She may like 
to know where next week’s meets are to be, even though 
she can’t go out. She is always interested in the hounds. 
Perhaps she would like to have a couple of puppies at 
walk. They might be an amusement to her while there is 
illness in the house. But I trust in God poor Sir Allan 
will pull through quicker than you expect.” 

Dora rang the bell and sent a servant for her niece. 
Mr. Colchester walked up and down the room meanwhile, 
sorely troubled, and finding no word to say to his com- 
panion. 

The footman came back to say that Miss Grace Darnel 
sent her compliments to Mr. Colchester, and was much 
too unhappy to see any one. 

'‘Thank’ee,” said the young squire; and when the man 
was gone he added, moodily, ‘‘I didn’t think she’d see 
me. She’s been uncommonly rough on me for the last 
year or so. And before she went to school in Pans w^e 
were no end of chums. Good-bye, Miss Darnel; I sliall 
call again to-morrow, and perhaps Lady Darnel will be 
well enough to see me. I have ahvays been one of her 
warmest admirers, you know, and I — well, it would take a 
dooced lot of hard facts to make me believe* that her in- 
fiuence upon Sir Allan’s life has been anything but a good 
influence, and that he isn’t as hai:)py as a bird in his mar- 
riage with her.” 

And wdth these words, Mr. Colchester departed, feeling 
more easy in his mind after he had thus expressed him- 
self. 

The vicar’s wife and the doctor’s old maiden sister called 
in the course of the afternoon, full of friendliness, and 
anxious To see Lady Darnel were she able to receive a 
friend. The county sent cards and inquiries, but offered 
no warmer form of sympathy. And so the long day of 
grief and fear wore on, to be followed by another sleep- 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


79 


less night, and a. dawn of sorrow. There was no improve- 
ment in the patient. The utmost comfort Mr. Danvers 
could offer was the assurance that he saw no increase of 
danger. 

Dora and Grace went down to the dining-room to break- 
fast on this second morning; but Lady Darnel could not 
be induced to leave her room. There she was close to the 
sick-cliamber. There she was within call at any moment 
should her husband recover his senses, and ask for her. 
There, too, she was secure' from the horror of strange 
faces, the agony of having to go on through the routine of 
daily life. She was shut in from the outer world— -her 
own mistress. 

Grace had anxieties of her own, as w^l as that agonizing 
fear for her father^s life. She wanted very much to have 
a few words with her godfather; and on Miss Darnel re- 
tiring to her daily interview with the housekeeper the 
desired opportunity occurred. Grace and Colonel Stukely 
were alone. 

Have you seen anything more of him?” she asked, 
plunging at once into the heart of her subject. ‘^Have 
you heard anything?” 

Not a word,” replied the colonel. took a long 
walk yesterday afternoon with the idea that I might find 
out something. I called at the inn, saw the landlord, and 
asked if he had any strangers lodging in his house. Not 
a mortal. Then I went the round of the better class of 
cottagers, mostly pensioners of yours and Lady Darnel’s, 
to whom you have introduced me at odd times. I didn’t 
put my questions directly, bnt let out our idea of a burglary 
at Darnel, and asked if strangers had been noticed about 
the place. I even walked across to Handlebury Union, 
with the notion that it was just possible the poor fellow 
may have had to take refuge there.” 

“Oh, colonel, how utterly dreadful.” 

“ My dear child, the Union has sheltered better men 
than he. However, no such person had been heard of 
there. So I take it, Mr. Camillac must have had a few 
shillings about him in spite of his wretched appearance, 
and that he has gone on to some other place. The mystery 
is that he shi)uld have come here at all, unless with the 
idea of seeing you.” 

“ I feel convinced that he came here to see me, and for 


80 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


no other purpose, and that he is lying dead or dying on 
some dreary common, where tire fox-bounds are more 
likely to find him than anybody else,’’ said Grace, impetu- 
ously. Oh, what double misery. Victor dying or dead 
— my father’s life trembling in the balance. It seems as 
if the world were coming to an end.” 

In vain the colonel argued with his goddaughter, urging 
that in life the unforseen is always likely; and that there 
was no reason to grieve for the fate of a young man who 
had perhaps already fallen on his feet. Grace was not to 
be comforted. The romantic fancy which had induced 
her to pledge her young life to this stranger was a folly of 
the past; but all her womanly feelings were enlisted by 
her lover in the hour of his helplessness and destitution. 

‘"To think of me, surrounded with all these luxuries,” 
she exclaimed, looking angry at the richly furnished 
breakfast- table, “ while the man who was to be my hus- 
band has not as good a shelter as the stable dogs.” 

“ My dear child, a young man’s life is generally a fact 
of his own making,” said the colonel, sagely. “A man 
of education, such as you describe this Oumillac, could 
hardly fall so low except through his own misconduct.” 

“ You said that before,” retorted Grace. “Pray don’t 
sermonize. If I were not so anxious about my father, I 
would take a couple of dogs and ride over every bit 
of waste ground within ten miles, till I found that poor 
fellow.” 

“If that is your idea, Grace, I can carry it out for you, 
dogs and all,” said the colonel kindly. 

“ Oh, my dear godfather, how good you are!” cried the 
girl, repenting of her rudeness. “ Forgive me for my 
ingratitude just now. I hardly know what I say. I am 
so very miserable — about Victor — about my father and 
Lady Darnel most of all.” 

“Poor Lady Darnel; yes, your father’s accident is a 
terrible blow for her.” 

“It is not that only,” said Grace, dropping her voice, 
and drawing a little nearer to the colonel. “ But it is 
ail so strange — so full of mystery.” 

And then she told Colonel Stukely how she had been 
awakened by a cry of agony from Lady Darnel, and of 
those strange words spoken in a dream. “ My fault, my 
fault- — I murdered him!” 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 81 

not that strange?” asked Grace, with a troubled 

look. 

Only strange as dreams are strange. . Would you ac- 
cuse Lady Darnel of having shot her husbatid upon such 
evidence? She fell asleep with her mind full of death and 
murder, and dreamed that she herself had fired the fatal 
shot, or had been individually concerned in the deed. 
Dreams are for the most part sheer lunacy. God knows 
what hideous visions her troubled brain may have woven.” 

‘‘Yes, that is just what I thought at the time. But 
the words have haunted me ever since. You know how 
fond I am of Lady Darnel. I believe I love her almost as 
well as I could have'loved my own dear mother, had God 
spared her to me. And yet there are times when I feel 
worried and perplexed about the mystery of her past life. 
Aunt Dora says such cruel things.” ^ 

“ My dear, it is in your aunt’s nature to say cruel 
things, just as it is in the nature of wasps and hornets to 
sting. 1 don’t wish to be rude about your family, but I 
fancy that old Sir George Darnel’s second wife must have 
introduced a particularly venomous strain into the fine 
old stock. It is a good thing for the race that Miss Dar- 
nel has remained a spinster.” 

“Yes, Aunt Dora has a peculiar talent for being dis- 
agreeable, and she has exercised it unsparingly with re- 
gard to Lady Darnel. I always take my step-mother’s 
part; and yet in these last dreadful days Aunt Dora’s in- 
sinuations about the mystery in her past life have made 
me miserable. If I were once to believe that she is a 
hypocrite, that her devotion to my father is only a clever 
piece of acting — ” 

“ Have no such doubt, no such fear, Grace,” said the 
colonel, heartily. “Your father has told me — his old 
friend — the whole story of Lady Darnel’s life. There is 
no mystery, nothing that could not be told as freely to 
you as to me, if your father were so minded. He has 
held back the knowledge from you only because the story 
is a dark story. If you knew all, you would know that 
Lady Darnel’s first marriage was a time of martyrdom, 
that as wife and as mother she has been a martyr.” 

“ I did not even know that she had any children,” said 
Grace. 

“Yes, there was a son, but he is dead, happily.” 


82 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


He was a bad son, tlien?” 

very bad son — following in the footsteps of a gnilty 
father. Your step-mother’s life has been blameless — it has 
been even heroic. You can not love her too well.” 

And I have loved her with all my heart,” answered 
Grace. And I will go on loving her." And I will trust 
her implicitly, come what may. Dear old godfather, I feel 
ever so much happier after this talk with you.” 

‘‘And I’ll order my horse and. scour the country in 
searcli of this ragamuffin suitor of yours,” said the colonel, 
and to himself he added, “and if I find him it shall go 
hard if I don’t buy him off pretty cheap, and set this little 
fool of mine free to smile upon honest Ted Colchester.” 


CHAPTER IX. 

“LOVE WILL HAVE HIS WAY.” 

The third day began, and still no change in the patient, 
Mr. Colchester had called on the day before. He called 
again at breakfast time on this third morning, on his way 
home after cub-hunting, apologetic about his mud-be- 
spattered boots. The footman ushered him into the dining- 
room, and he found himself face to face with Grace Darnel 
before he had time to collect his thoughts. 

“ So glad to see you again; so sorry to hear Sir Allan is 
no better,” he faltered, as they shook hands. “A capital 
run found at Ringtree Marsh, quarter- past six; ran'into 
Milksham Copse, over Chadbury Common, back again 
into Milksham, got him out into the fields, ran rightaway 
to Pattsfield over some stiffish country, lost him in Swat- 
ley Wood after forty minutes’ hard going, started another 
at half past seven. But I ought not to talk to you about 
such things when you are all so unhappy,” said Colchester, 
suddenly aware that he was behaving like a brute, as he 
saw the blank faces of the two women. 

The colonel looked a little interested, in spite of his 
anxiety. 

“Will you take a cup of tea, or may I give you some 
coffee?” asked Dora, solemnly. 

“Thank you. I should like some tea above all things.” 

The butler had arranged a place for the dropper-in at 


CtT BY THU COtTKTY. 


83 


Grace’s right hand, and had put a dish of cutlets in front 
of that place, by way of invitation; so Mr. Colchester sat 
down and took his cup of tea. He was much too agitated 
to eat anything, in spite of his three or four hours in tlie 
cold morning air and his forty minutes across country. 
He thought it an extraordinary privilege to be sitting 
next Grace, to be able to look at her and talk to her. 
Yesterday, he had been favored with a second interview 
with Dora, which had been depressing to the last degree. 
Grace looked very miserable; but oh, how pretty she was 
in her misery, and how many years of his life he would 
have bartered away for the power to console her. But he 
could do nothing except steal a look at her every now and 
then as he drank his tea. 

‘‘When do you begin your regular season?” asked 
Colonel Stukely^ after silence had prevailed for some min- 
utes. 

“Not till next month. We shall finish our cub-hunt- 
ing this week, and then we shall have a few by-days. 
Our first advertised meet is to be on the fifth of October. 
1 hope all will be well here ever so long before then, and 
that — if yoU' don’t go to Italy — you’ll be out and in full 
force on that day,” added Mr. Colchester, looking at Grace. 

“I don’t suppose I shall ever hunt again,” said Grace, 
bursting into tears, and the lord of the manor felt that he 
was an undisciplined brute, always blurting out foolish 
speeches, and that there was no help for him. 

Tiie butler came back at this moment, with an unusu- 
ally solemn air, as of one who only carries messages of 
vital import. He bore a silver salver with a card upon it, 
which he carried to Miss Darnel. 

“The gentleman says that he is here by appointment, 
ma’am.” 

“Show him into the library,” said Dora, rising with. a 
stately air. “Kindly excuse me, Mr. Colchester.” 

“ I am going this instant; I ought not to have stayed so 
long,” said Colchester apologetically, getting up with a 
hurried air. 

But nobody was thinking about him, or how long he 
stayed. Grace had gone over to her aunt. 

“Who is this person, Aunt Dora.^” she asked anx- 
iously; “another doctor?” 

“ No, it is a person on business. A person whom I sent 


CUT BY T2E COUKTS^: 


u 

for/’ answered Miss Darnel. I don’t think I need make 
any concealment about the matter. The person is a de- 
tective from Scotland Yard.” 

A detective, Aunt Dora? A detective in this house, 
summoned by you^” 

^^Why not, child? If you are indifferent as to the 
manner in which your father received the wound which 
may be his death, if you and Lady Darnel, his wife and 
his daughter, are content to sit down and let the murderer 
escape, I, his sister, am not so content. The mystery 
ought to be fathomed; and as there is no one in this house 
clever enough to fathom it, I have sent for professional 
assistance.” 

‘^You may have acted wisely in so doing,” replied 
Colonel Stukely, but it would have been more friendly 
to acquaint Sir Allan’s daughter and his old comrade, 
before you took such a serious step; not to mention his 
wife, who had a still better claim to be told,” 

‘^I’m very glad you’ve got a detective,” said Colchester, 
‘^for I believe he’ll be of my way of thinking, and scent 
a burglar in this business. Good-bye. I’ll come round 
again in the afternoon, if I may, just to see how things are 
going on.” 

Come as often as you like, Colchester,” replied the 
colonel, heartily. ‘‘Your presence will do something 
toward cheering us.” 

Grace sliook her head despondingly. 

“ Nothing can cheer us till my father is out of danger,” 
she said, as Edward Colchester backed out of the room, 
entangling himself with his spurs, and looking at her 
adoringly to tlie last. 

“As this kind of thing is altogether out of your line. 
Miss Darnel, I think it would be as well for me to see the 
detective with 3mu,” said the colonel; “ that is to say, if 
you wish to see him at ail. I could spare you the painful 
intepiew altogether, as I can give the man all the infor- 
niation necessary. I am not a stranger to this kind of 
inquiry.” 

“ I would much rather see the person myself,” replied 
Dora, with an offended air. “I sent for him upon my 
own responsibility; and I particularly desire that he should 
know my ideas about Giis terrible event.” 


85 


Ctr^ BY THE COUKTY. 

you take my advice yon will tell him no ideas of 
your own or any one else’s,” answered the colonel, sh.arply. 

Give him nothing but the plain facts, and let him work 
out the solution of the^ problem in his own way. Tiie 
detective police are not heaven-born geniuses; but most 
of them are hard-headed sensible men, and not likely to 
go far astray, except when they are muddled and mis- 
directed by non- professional interference.” 

do not think you have any reason to consider me 
cither a child or an idiot. Colonel Stukely,” retorted Miss 
Darnel. Pray permit me to manage my own affairs. 
You can go with me to the library, if you please.” 

The colonel did please, and followed the lady closely, 
while Grace went upstairs to her step-mother, who sat by 
the fire, motionless, apathetic. The dainty little break- 
fast-table beside her was scarcely disturbed from the neat 
order in which it had been brought into the room. 

*^You have eaten positively nothing, mother,” said 
Grace, scrutinizing the table. 

“ I have had some tea, and a little toast; I have done 
very well,” answered Clare, and then in a despairing tone 
she added, Oli, Grace, there is no improvement. I spoke 
to one of the nurses. She was going off to her bedroom, 
with such an orderly air, as if life or death were all the 
same to her. There is no diminution of the fever — the 
temperature is just as high. He has not spokeii one 
sensible word since that night. Mr. Friedricson is to 
come again to-day; but the nurse thinks it would be mad- 
ness to attempt to extract the bullet while he is in this 
state. I do not believe these people have any hope of 
saving him.” 

“ Oh, mother, we 7nust save him. God will answer our 
prayers,” cried Grace. Let ns pray for that dear life 
together, side by side, with heart, and strength, and mind. 
Surely God must hear and answer such prayers I” 

In the library Mr. Penwern, a homely looking, middle- 
aged man, with pepper-and-salt hair and whiskers, and 
pepper-and-salt clothing to match, was listening and 
questioning, and making notes, until he had the story of 
Sir Allan’s wound, so far as it was known to Miss Darnel 
and Colonel Stukely, all in black and white before him. 
Then he went up to see the room in which the catastrophe 
happened, and, moving to and fro, quietly, lest he should 


86 


CTJT BY THE COTTNTY. 


disturb the patient in the adjoining room, he made a com- 
plete inspection of the ground. Here was the spot, just 
inside the threshold, where Sir Allan was found lying. 
There were stains of blood upon the Aubusson carpet to 
mark the place where he lay while they waited for the 
coming of the doctor. He had clutched 'portiere as he 
fell, for the first three or four hooks that sustained it were 
wrenched from the brass rod. There was Lady Darners 
writing-table. She had been sitting there writing ten 
minutes before she heard the pistol shot from the corridor 
outside. There were the two iB'rench windows opening on 
to the balcony. 

Was either of these windows open on the night? Yes, 
one was open. The colonel remembered the wind blowing 
in his face as he came in at the door. 

Ml*. Penwern stepped out upon the balcony and made 
his survey. It was a broad, old-fashioned balcony, roof- 
ing in a colonnade outside the breakfast-room below, l^iie 
iron pilasters of the colonnade were covered with greenery 
— a mighty westeria spread itself along the ironwork like 
a curtain, an old magnolia was trained over one side of 
the balcony. Easy enough for an active man to reach 
such a balcony. No difficulty as to access. The next 
question to be considered was motive. 

‘‘ Any valuables kept at this end of the house?” asked 
the detective. 

‘‘Lady Darnel has some jewelry in her dressing-room,” 
answered Dora, “ but Lady Darners are not family jewels, 
not of sufficient renown to tempt a thief, I should” think.” 

“ Thieves are easily tempted now'adays,” answered 
Penwern. “ The trade is overrun, and business is often 
very slack. It seems to me that this balcony is about the 
easiest access all along this side of the house, and the point 
at which any man would naturally enter.” 

“ But with this room occupied; with lamps burning?” 
suggested Dora, incredulously. 

“ The room had been deserted for some minutes before 
the shot was fired. A man might have been on the watch 
for this opportunity.” 

“ Surely he would have waited till Lady Darnel had 
gone to bed; till the house was dark. That seems only 
reasonable,” said Dora. 

“ It seems reasonable; but there is the fact that the shot 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


87 


was fired, and there is the antecedent that ^ir Allan got 
up and came to that door yonder. 1 take it that he heard 
a strange footstep in this room and that he came in just 
in time to surprise the burglar. Are you sure that there 
were no valuables kept in this very room?*’ 

“ Quite sure,” answered Dora. It is Lady Darnel’s 
boudoir. Tliere has never been anything kept here ex- 
cept her work-boxes and writing-cases, and books, just as 
you see them now.” 

The detective had devoured the room with his eyes. He 
knew every article it contained. 

“In that Italian cabinet, for instance, are no valuables 
— trinkets, money — kept there?” he asked. 

“Nothing of the kind, to my knowledge.” 

“Stay,” exclaimed the colonel. “Sir Allen told us 
that he had drawn four hundred pounds in bank-notes for 
traveling expenses. How do we know that he did not 
keep the money in this room — in that cabinet, perhaps? 
I saw him put away a lease in that very cabinet a fortnight 
ago, when I was here with him and Lady Darnel, at after- 
noon tea.” 

“ Lady Darnel would be the most likely person to en- 
lighten us, I take it,” said the detective, who thirsted to 
see Lady Darnel. 

Until he had scrutinized and taken stock of every mem- 
ber of the family and household it was to Mr. Penwern as 
if he were playing a difficult game of cards blindfolded. 
AVhen he had seen all his cards he would begin to under- 
stand what game he had to play. 

After a few minutes whispered conversation with the 
colonel, Dora went in quest of Lady Darnel. She went 
reluctantly, since she would have preferred that this pro- 
fessional investigation should have been carried on without 
Lady Darnel’s knowledge, a secret underground business, 
dark as Belzoni’s researches in Egyptian tombs. She 
wanted the thing to be her work, a mystery between her 
and the detective, to explode at a given moment in a 
startling revelation which should bring shame and discom- 
fiture on the woman she hated. And now this detested 
second wife was to be let into the secret, was to have due 
notice of what was taking place, and would thus be able to 
prevent discovery were she, as Dora Darnel firmly be- 
lieved, a guilty agent in the catastrophe. 


88 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 

^ If it was, her infamy in the past which drove him to 
suicide, or if it was some lover of hers who stole into the 
house to murder him, this detective ought to be able to 
unravel the mystery,” Dora told herself, as she went slow- 
ly to Grace’s bedroom. ‘^But Lady Darnel, once on her 
guard, may be able to frustrate him in his investigation, to 
throw dust in his eyes.” 

She found Clare Darnel sitting by her neglected fire, 
just as Grace had left her. 

There is a person here trying to find out the mystery 
of my brother’s wound,” she said, curtly. ‘^He wants to 
ask you a few questions.” 

Clare started suddenly to her feet. That marble face 
of hers could not grow paler tliail it had been, but there 
was a frightened look in her eyes which Dora was quick 
to perceive. 

AVhat kind of person?” she asked; a police officer?” 

“ He comes from Scotland Yard.” 

Lady Darnel made no further remark. They went in 
silence to the morning-room, where Mr. Penwern was 
standing in front of. the window, looking out, while the 
colonel fidgeted about by the cold blank hearth. 

The detective turned as Lady Darnel entered, saluted 
her respectfully, and looked at her with grave eyes which 
absorbed every detail of her appearance, without the 
faintest indication of eagerness or curiosity. 

She stood with her splendid figure drawn to its fullest 
height, her head erect. Not a vestige of color varied the 
marble whiteness of her complexion. The face was color- 
less and calm as the face of a statue; but the heavy 63^6- 
lids, the purple shadows round the eyes, told of long 
agonies of weeping. It was not the first time Clare Dar- 
nel had faced the police — had answered to the inquiries 
in a criminal investigation. 

Despite the calm dignity of her attitude, the statuesque 
repose of her features, the detective saw the signs of ap- 
prehension, secret fears which she was struggling to re- 
press. 

This woman knows more than any one else,” he 
thought, and then he questioned Lady Darnel about the 
contents of the cabinet. 

Yes,” she said dreamily, as if only just remembering 
the fact, there are some bank-notes there. The money 


/ 


CUT- BY THE COUNTY. 89 

Sir Allan had drawn for our traveling expenses/’ lier 
voice faltered a little as she recalled her delight in the 
idea of that journey, the sweet expectation of happy 
days with her beloved in a lovely land, and now a grave 
yawned before; darkest, direst fears crowded upon her 
soul. 

“A large sum of money?” inquired Penworn. 

Three — no, I think it was four hundred pounds.” 

Have you the key of the cabinet. Lady Darnel?” 

‘‘My husband and I have duplicate keys — but I doubt 
if Sir Allan locked the cabinet that night. He had taken 
out his pistols in order to examine them — he was ex- 
cited, tired, and did not put the pistols back in the 
cabinet.” 

“ Will you be good enough to see if the notes are still 
there. Lady Darnel?” asked the detective. 

She started, looked at him curiously, and then a sudden 
flow of crimson swept over her cheek and brow. 

“ What difference can that make? — the notes are safe, 
of course,” she said. 

“ Not if there was a burglar in this room — and he was 
clever enough to secure his booty before Sir Allan inter- 
rupted him. You don’t suppose. Lady Darnel, I take it 
that Sir Allan got up out of his bed and came to this room 
to shoot himself?” 

“ 1 suppose nothing — I know nothing except that my 
husband’s life is in danger.” 

“ The law wants to know a great deal more than that,” 
said Dora._ “ The law wants to know how my poor broth- 
er’s life came to be endangered.” 

“ Oblige me by looking for the notes. Lady Darnel,” 
said the detective. “The obvious reading of this sad 
business is that Sir Allan was shot by a burglar — who 
managed to escape before you re-entered this room. If so, 
the burglar must have come after something, -and witli 
some definite purpose. Please try the cabinet.” 

He could see that she was reluctant, curiously reluctan t, 
to obey; but she went slowly to the Italian cabinet and 
opened the doors to the widest. She had been right in 
her conjectures — the cabinet had not been locked since 
Sir Allan took out the pistol-case. 

“Do you find the notes. Lady Darnel?” asked Pen- 
wern when she had been standing there some minutes, 


90 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


examining shelves and drawers, and secret— nominally 
secret — receptacles at the back of the quaint old piece of 
furniture. 

‘‘ No, they are not here — at least I can not find them.” 

Do you know if Sir Allan had taken the numbers of 
those notes?” 

“ I think not. He only drew them from the bank the 
day before the accident. He was out with the hounds 
early next morning — he was engaged with his steward all 
the afternoon.” 

'‘We can get the numbers from the bank, I dare say,” 
said the colonel, 

" True. But they will be of very little use to us. 
Bank-notes and diamonds are the bread and cheese of the 
burglar’s trade. The thing is to find out who did this. 
I have an idea that I could put my hand upon the man — 
the hero of a good many portico robberies.” 

" Pray, what is a portico robbery?” asked the colonel. 

“ Almost every country-seat has a portico; the better 
the liouse the bigger the portico,” explained the detective. 
"Nothing easier to scale than a handsome, classical ])orti- 
co. No ladder or ropes or tell-tale apparatus wanted. 
The burglar watches his opportunity, generally finds it at 
dusk, when the family are at dinner, the seryunts all oc- 
cupied down-stairs. He scales the portico — there is always 
at least one window above it. He gets quickly in at the 
window, sneaks along a corridor to my lady’s dressing- 
room or bedroom — of course he has learned the geography 
of the upper floor beforehand — finds her jewel-case, pitches 
it out of the window to friend or friends below — catch 
as catch can — and as quietly sneaks out of the house, and 
off to the nearest railway station, where friends have gone 
on before with trap. If he is met in a corridor after the 
fact, there is no property in his possession — he rushes past 
a bewildered maid-servant — gets clear off before she can 
collect her senses.” 

" And you think that this was a portico robbery?” said 
the colonel. 

" I know of only one man — a distinguished artist in 
that line — quick enough and audacious enough to man- 
age this business in the time in which it was done,” 
i:eplied the detective. " Pray, Lady Darnel, how long 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


91 


were you absent from this room before you heard a pistol 
shot?” 

A very short time.” 

Five minutes?” 

Euther more than that — nearly ten minutes, perhaps.” 

All; tlie man I mean could do a good deal more than 
ransack that cabinet in ten minutes. After you heard 
the pistol shot, did you lose much time in getting to this 
room?” 

Not an instant.” 

And when you came in there was no one in the room 
but Sir Allan?” 

‘‘ No one.” 

And you did not think of looking out of the window 
after the assassin?” 

‘‘ I thought of nothing but my husband.” 

‘^A pity. Yet, I don’t suppose you would have seen 
much if you had looked. Did nobody think of examining 
the grounds round the house that night?” 

‘‘ No one,” answered Colonel Stukely. We ought to 
have hunted the scoundrel, but we were all half out of our 
wits. The only thought was of Sir Allan and getting the 
, doctor.” 

‘‘So the man had his chance, and got clean off. He 
must havp left the neighborhood by an early train, and 
got back to London. I dare say I shall be able to hear 
something about him at the station. By the way. Lady 
Darnel, do you remember if there was any conversation 
about those notes becween you and Sir Allan that evening 
— anything that could have been overheard by a person 
standing outside the balcony?” 

“ Sir Allan spoke of the notes before he put them 
away.” 

“ VVas the window open at the time^” 

“Yes, there was a window open.” 

“ Thank you. Lady Darnel. I don’t think I need trouble 
you any more. Be kind enough to lock that cabinet, and 
keep the key in your possession. It is a good lock, I 
suppose?” 

“ It is a Brahma lock, which Sir Allan had put on three 
years ago,” said Dora. 

Lady Darnel sunk into her chair by the hearth, the 
pretty parti-colored basket-chair in which she had sat on 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


92 

many an evening-chatting with her husband when the rest 
of the household had retired for the night. She sat with 
her hands idle in her lap, her eyes fixed and tearless, lost 
• in painful thought. Yes, the notes were gone — and she 
knew too well whose hands had takeoi them. She cculd 
understand it all now, her son's persistent demand for 
three or four hundred pounds. He had been standing out 
on the balcony by the open window, when Sir Allan talked 
about the notes; he had seen where .they were put. He 
would have got them from her, if he could, induced her to 
rob her husband for his benefit; it was toward that point 
he was urging when Grace’s summons called her suddenly 
away, and he was left in the' room with the money within 
his reach. Then came the diabolical temptation, an easy 
step from dishonorable dealing to absolute theft. The 
man who had never hesitated at cheating a creditor became 
in a moment the midnight robber. Then the surprise, 
the pistols lying there fatally ready for use, a shot fired at 
random, perhaps, and a hasty escape by the open window. 

While she was thus picturing the horror of that night, 
Mr. Penwern was out in the balcony making a further in- 
vestigation. A box of mignonette stood in his way as he 
stepped from the window to the balcony. It must have 
been in the way of the burglar in his flight. Mr. Pen- 
wern knelt down and examined the flowers and, the mold 
under them. Yes, the man had trodden on the mignon- 
ette; there were broken stems, bruised leaves, and the 
deep print of a heel on one side of the box — a smallish 
heel, worn down on one side. 

“ A fashionably made boot, but a dooced old boot,” 
said Mr. Penwern to himself as he studied that point in 
the mold. never knew Covey to sport anything as 
shabby as that. Covey was always neat about his under- 
standing. A man who has to get across country against 
time can’t afford to be slipshod or down at heel.” 

The footprint in the mignonette box make the manner 
of the burglar’s escape a certainty to the mind of Mr. 
Penwern. He went down-stairs with Colonel Stukely, 
and made a minute examination of the* Italian garden in 
front of the balcony. He was able to trace footsteps in a 
diagonal line across the garden, deeply stamped upon 
flower-beds, and but faintly indicated here and there on 
the gravel walks. The man had worn odd boots, one boot 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


93 


with a broader heel than the other, and a hole in the 
middle of the sole, both boots seemingly in the last stage 
of dilapidation. 

Egad,” exclaimed the colonel, after the detective had 
expatiated upon these marks, he must have been a 
shabby devil.” 

As he spoke a sudden scare took hold of him. What if 
this man should have been the French adventurer, Grace's 
disreputable lover? The man he had seen lying on the 
common was clad like a tramp, shod like a tramp, and 
those indications on the dower-beds pointed to Just such a 
man. Taking this fact in conjunction with Camiilac’s 
disappearance, his silence toward Grace, the colonel felt 
that there was ground for fear. Unhappy Grace, if her 
folly should have brought this ruin upon her father’s 
house. 

And to pursue this investigation — which Penwern was 
conducting with ill-concealed cheerfulness, as of one 
certain of distinction and reward — to pursue this investi- 
gation to the end might be to inflict ineffable shame upon 
his goddaughter. Were this Oamillac the offender, any 
trial, any public examination must need bring that miser- 
able episode of Grace’s Parisian education into the broad 
glare of newspaper publicity. And the colonel knew how 
charitable this world of the waning nineteenth century is, 
how given to look at the best and brightest side of a 
strange story, how loath to attribute evil to youth or 
womanhood. The colonel saw his hazel-eyed darling’s 
reputation blasted irretrievably in the very morning of 
life; he saw even honest Edward Colchester’s faith up- 
rooted, his love cast to the four winds. And in his heart 
Colonel Stukely cursed Dora Darnel for her ofi&ciousness. 

Mr. Penwern seemed troubled in his mind after the 
discovery of these irregular prints in the flower-beds. He 
went back to them — ^he scrutinized them as closely as a 
great chemist might have watched some curious experi- 
ment. He was evidently dashed in spirits. He had made 
up his mind that this little affair had been carried through 
by the distinguished Covey. It bore, as he thought, the 
very stamp of Covey’s workmanship; for Covey was un- 
scrupulous, and would not have hesitated at shooting 
down any one who came in his way. He did things neatly, 
but he did not mind a little blood now and then. But 


94 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


Mr. Penwern seemed to know Covey as if he were his 
brother, and he could not believe that any turn of fort- 
une’s wheel could bring Covey to wear such boots as 
those disgraceful objects that had left the pi’int of their 
trodden-down heels on the flower-beds of Darnel. 

‘‘ If I could believe in a tramp clever enough to do such 
neat work, I should say tluit this had been done by a 
tramp,” said the detective, with conviction, *‘but 1 never 
knew a tramp yet that could rise above a kitchen window 
robbery.” 

“ Come back to the house and have some lunch,” said 
the colonel, with the sinister intent of giving the detective 
such liberal entertainment as should at least take the sharp 
edge off his power of perception. 

He could not hope to make such a respectable man 
drunk; but he thought it might be possible to get him 
slightly muddled. 

Mr. Penwern was mortal, and Mr. Penwern was hungry. 
He had been traveling since half past six o’clock, and it 
was now half past twelve. The Darnel dining-room 
looked a very luxurious place after the refreshment-room 
at the junction, where Mr. Penwern had regaled himself 
with a cup of tea, which had a strictly rustic flavor of 
new-mown hay, and a stale Bath bun. The colonel urged 
Purdew in a confidential aside to do the very best he could 
for Mr. Penwern, and Purdew opined from the colonel’s 
tone that there was some especial reason for making much 
of the stranger. He sent a peremptory order to the 
kitchen, and he brought forth a fat cobwebby bottle of his 
choicest Burgundy, a velvety Ohambertin, with an aroma 
of violets. Beside the sacred wine, which reposed slant- 
ing-wise in a basket, the butler placed a pint decanter of 
dry sherry, bright to the eye, pleasantly bitter to the taste, 
a tonic and an appetizer. The cook was quick to respond 
to the major-domo’s order. In a little more than a quarter 
of an hour, just time enough for Mr. Penwern to look at 
Sir Allan’s pictures and to wash his mouth out with a 
couple of glasses of the dry sherry, the meal was ready. 
A filletted sole with olives and mushrooms, a salmi of 
partridges, with plenty of truffles in an incomparable 
gi*avy. 

This is the kind of thing I like,” admitted Mr. Pen- 
wern, as he lapped up the gravy. He was not a man to 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


95 


put bis knife in bis mouth, but be unbent so far as to sop 
up the sauce with his bread. This is the sort of snack I 
enjoy — something light and tasty. When I am on a job 
like this, I usually find myself introduced to a cold sirloin, 
or a silver-side. People seem to think that nothing can 
be too substantial foi\ Scotland Yard. Now Pm not an 
epicure, sir, but silver-sides and siiT ins are apt to pall 
upon a man at my time of life. Thank you, sir, that Bur- 
gundy is the finest I ever partook of.’’ 

The detective had lunched luxuriously; and now he 
leaned back in his chair, made himself thoroughly comfort- 
able with his toothpick, and sipped the big bell-shaped 
glass of Burgundyo 

“A very pleasant wine,” he said, approvingly ; “ a sound, 
wholesome wine.” 

‘‘ Don’t be afraid of it, Mr. Penwern,” said the colonel, 
‘Mt is too good a wine to do you any harm.” 

Not after such a luncheon as I have partaken of,” said 
the detective, who was evidently in an expansive mood. 

“ A light little meal like that leaves a man’s intellect 
free to work put a difficulty, whereas your cold sirloin and 
pickles weigh him down like lead, and your table beer 
stupefies him. And yet in almost all the houses I go into 
it’s the same old story — beef and beer. They forget, sir, 
that a man in my position can get beef and beer at home. 
He needn’t go among the magnates of the land, and flog 
his brains in their service, for such entertainment as that. 
However, that’s neither here nor there. Wliat I have to 
do is to find the man who took those notes and fired that 
pistol.” 

‘‘ Don’t you think that the odds are very much against 
your finding him, he having had three clear days’ start?” 
suggested the colonel. 

“ That increases the difficulty, I grant, sir, but it -is a 
detective’s business to rise superior to such difficulties. 
If it was Covey I should know where to put my hand 
upon him— but it’s not Covey. Covey never wore down- 
at-heel boots, and Covey is much too clever to make a 
rush across flower-beds. Covey does his work clean, and 
leaves no slot behind him. I suppose the family will offer 
a handsome reward.” 

‘‘I really don’t know. I think not,” answered the 
colonel, nervously. 


06 


CUT BY THE COUJSTTY. 


Mr. Penwern’s countenance fell, in spite of the Bur- 
gundy. 

“I don’t think there’s much chance for the man or the 
money being found unless the family offers a reward,” 
said Penwern. 

The door opened as he spoke. Dora Darnel entered 
quietly, and took her seat near the colonel, who would 
almost as soon have seen a cobra occupy those luxurious 
cushions. 

‘‘ The family will offer a reward,” said Dora, answering 
Mr. Penwern, who rose confusedly at her entrance, and 
began to fold his napkin with a vague idea of getting it 
back into its original shape of a bishop’s miter. “ I, on 
the part of my brother’s family, will be answerable for the 
reward. Shall we offer a hundred pounds? Is that 
enough?” 

Hardly,” replied Mr. Penwern. The money stolen 
was four hundred. You had better offer two for the 
apprehension of the man who wounded Sir Allan. If you 
get the man, you are very likely to get back a part of the 
money.” 

'I’he money is of no consequence,” said Dora, but I 
do not wish my brother’s murder — for it is too likely we 
may lose him — to go unavenged. We need not wait until 
he is dead to find the man who attempted his life.” 

No, madam, there is not an hour to be lost. Time is 
half the battle in these cases,” replied the detective. 

He was flushed with meat and drink, his eyes sparkled, 
he had the comfortable look of a man who had lunched 
abundantly, but there was not the faintest indication of a 
muddled brain. Not a cloud overshadowed the profes- 
sional intellect. Colonel Stukely felt that he and the cook 
and the butler had labored in vain. 

“'With your permission, ma’am, I will go to the nearest 
town andgetfifiy small posters, offering the two hundred 
pound reward,” said the detective. “ I can get ’em 
printed and distributed in a couple of hours, if I’m sharp.” 

“ By all means,” said Dora approvingly. “ You can 
get a conveyance from the stable, and you had better 
make Darnel your head-quarters while you are carrying on 
the investigation.” 

The colonel got up suddenly, and walked out of the 
room in a savage humor. There could be no use in his 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


97 


wasting more time in diplomatic handling of the detect- 
ive. The business was taken out of his hands. He 
could not offer Mr. Penwern three hundred pounds not 
to find the delinquent; and short of that he could do 
nothing. Stimulated by the offer of a reward, the detect- 
ive would bring his professional keenness into play at fullest 
power, while every loafer in the district would be on the 
alert to help him. Unless the man who did the deed had 
got clean off, and was already safe on the other side of the 
Channel, or on the high seas, there was little hope that he 
could escape the observation and inquiry that would be 
brought to bear upon his personality within the next few 
days. AVherever he was lurking there must be somebody 
to observe and to question him. Go where he will — be he 
a first-class traveler or a slip-shod tramp — the stranger is 
a mark for curiosity. 

It must be a race between the detective and me,” the 
colonel said to himself as he went in quest of Grace. If 
the delinquent is the man I take him to be, I must find 
him and get him out of the country before this Scotland 
Yard vulture makes his swoop.” 

The evidence upon which Colonel Stukely had formed 
his conclusion was of the slightest. There were first those 
footprints, prints which he had examined as minutely as 
the detective himself. The marks of a small, narrow 
foot — a gentleman’s foot — in a boot which, albeit worn to 
the quick, showed the lines of a fashionable maker. No 
hobnailed Biucher, no ready-made Albert, ever left such 
an imprint. Secondly, there was the fact of Camillac’s 
appearance in the neighborhood of Darnel, in a condition 
which might inspire desperate acts; and then there came 
the fact of his evanishment without sign or token for 
Grace. 


CHAPTEE X. 

YET I MUST PROVE ALL TRUTH TO THEE.” 

The colonel found his goddaughter in her own little 
sitting-room, very unhappy, utterly unable to employ her- 
self. Lady Darnel was in the next room. She would not 
allow Grace to remain with her. She preferred to be 
alone. 


4 


98 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


•SSlie does nothing but brood, and I do nothing but 
brood,” said Grace, who came out into the corridor to 
talk to tlie colonel. we go on much longer like this, 

we shall both be in a lunatic asylum.” 

The colonel patted her gently on the shoulder, but 
could offer no better consolation. He had talked con- 
fidentially with the doctor on the previous evening, and 
he had little hope of his old comrade’s recovery. 

Your Aunt Dora is active enough for the whole house- 
hold,” he said, bitterly. 

She is positively diabolical,” exclaimed Grace. The 
idea of her sending for a detective, and worrying poor 
Lady Darnel with questions about that wretched money, 
as if it could do my dear father any good to find the 
burglar who shot him. Of course, I should like the 
wretch to be hanged, but I can’t think of him or of any- 
thing else till my dearest father is out of danger.” 

“I am going for a prowl, Grace. I sha’n’t wait for 
luncheon, as I want a long afternoon.” 

‘‘The house is just a shade drearier when you are out 
of it,” said Grace, with a sigh. 

“You have not had any letter or message from Mr. 
Camillac?” 

“ Hot a word. I feel convinced that he is dead — that 
he died of cold and hunger under some hedge, but I feel 
as if it didn’t matter. I daresay I shall feel sorry for him 
by and by wlien my father is out of danger.” 

“ I don’t suppose he is dead, Grace. A man of that 
age is not so easily killed.” 

“ If he were not dead or dying, I should have heard of 
him before now,” said Grace, with conviction. “ Why 
did he come to this place except to see me? He was pen- 
niless, and he knows that I am rich. What more natural 
than that he should appeal to me. He could not go on 
existing without money.” 

“ No, he could not go on without money,” thought the 
colonel. 

The whole story seemed clear to him. This Camillac 
had been lurking about the grounds that night with the 
hope of seeing Grace. He saw the lighted windows of 
Lady Darnel’s room, opening upon a balcony which was 
easy to climb — he scaled the balcony, overheard Sir Allan’s 
talk about the bank-notes, saw where they were put, and 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


99 


made a rush for them when the room was empty. The 
whole transaction had grown out of the inspiration of the 
moment — an unpremeditated crime, suggested by oppor- 
tunity. He had come to the house to get a few pounds 
from his sweetheart: and he had suddenly seen a chance 
of helping himself to four hundred. 

And now, for Grace’s sake, the colonel wanted to get 
this scoundrel out of the way, at any cost to himself of 
trouble or hard cash. He was not a poor man, and he 
could afford to spare a few hundreds for his favorite. The 
difficulty was where to find the man. If he had got clear 
off' out of the clutches of the law it was well, and he 
might rest upon his ill-gotten gains at a distance without 
inflicting evil upon Grace; but if he were in hiding any- 
where within thirty miles of Darnel, the odds were that 
he would fall into the hands of Mr. Penwern, and the 
whole story would come to light at the next quarter 
sessions. 

The colonel rode slowly down the avenue on his old bay 
cob, a cob that was the very essence of sobriety and good 
manners as a hack, and yet, when inspired by a view- 
halloa and good company, could go at a tremendous pace 
in a burst across country. He rode very slowly, medi- 
tating where and how he was to pursue his quest of Mr. 
Camillac. He had already visited almost every cottage, 
and explored every copse or common in the neighbor- 
hood. Half down the avenue he met Edward Colchester 
on foot. 

I was just going up to the house to make an inquiry,” 
he said. ‘‘Any improvement in Sir Allan since the 
morning?” 

The colonel shook his head. 

Friedricson is to be here to-morrow,” he said; ‘^and if 
the bullet can be extracted, then there may be some hope. 
But just at present things look very bad.” 

‘‘ Poor Grace,” said Colchester, ‘^how sad it is for her. 
I should like to go and talk to her a bit, if you think I 
shouldn’t be a nuisance.” 

I am sure you would not be a nuisance, and your so- 
ciety would do Grace good. She is in a wretched state, 
poor girl. If you hurry up to the house you’ll find them 
at lunch, and ‘Grace can hardly refuse to see you,” said 


100 


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the colonel, who was a secret ally of Monsieur de Camil- 
lac’s rival. 

‘‘A thousand thanks!” exclaimed the youngs squire, 
starting off at a run. 

The family were at luncheon. Mr. Colchester asked to 
be shown into the dining-room, determined not to be 
relegated to the solitude of the drawing-room, and to a 
formal interview with Dora. They could not turn him 
away from their table in a house famous for hospitality; 
and, however dismal the meal might be, it would be rapture 
— a sad kind of rapture, of course— to sit by Grace in 
sympathetic silence, and admire the outline of cheek and 
throat, the little rings of auburn hair, which clustered in 
the hollow of her neck, the heavy coil of plaits, the gracious 
contour of the head. 

Dora Darnel and her niece were seated at opposite ends 
of the table, as far apart as they could be. Grace sat with 
an empty plate before her, the image of despair. She 
gave a wan smile when Mr. Colchester came in and took 
his seat by her side, uninvited, except by the servant who 
laid a cover for him. 

How very good of you to come again,” said Dora, with 
a faint emphasis on the last word. 

hope you don’t mind my coming so often. No, not 
any lunch, thank you,” to the servant. But I really 
(;ould not rest without looking round again. I have to 
dine at Mawlesford to-night. Sir Roger Brandon’s, don’t 
you know — a nine* mile drive, a horrid bore. I don’t feel 
a bit in the cue for going out. This — this sad business 
has upset me more than I can say.” 

Grace lifted those heavy eyelids of hers and gave him a 
grateful look out of the soft brown eyes; such luminous 
eyes they had been in the days of her gladness; but to 
Edward Colchester they seemed even lovelier in sorrow. 
That soft appealing look went straight to his heart. 

Yes, she was glad to see him. She had been living in 
an awful solitude of grief and fear— fearing her father’s 
death, fearing for her lover, that lover of whose existence 
she could not think without a shudder. Oh, the folly of 
those Parisian days — the silly romance, the fatuity of it 
all! What a burden she had laid upon herself — what a 
chain she had forged for her young life. If this faithful 
admirer of hers, who looked up to her with such respect- 


GUT BY THE COUHTt. 


101 


fill devotion, if he could know how idiotic she had been, 
how must his admiration be changed to scorn, his regard 
to loathing. It was the thought of this which made her 
uncivil to him. She wanted to keep him at arm’s length, 
if possible. She would not give him reason to reproach 
he^- for hypocrisy and double dealing. 

But to-day in the utter desolation of her life, she turned 
involuntarily to this friend of her childhood. How good 
and true he was, how frank, and honest, and straightfor- 
ward. Not so elegant, not so accomplished or fascinating 
as Victor de Camillac; but what a thoroughbred English 
gentleman,'without fear or reproach — a man to stand be- 
fore kings and not be ashamed. 

Is Lady Darnel too ill to come down to lunch?” in- 
fpiired Mr. Colchester. 

She is not ill — but she is very miserable, poor thing,” 
answered Grace. 

“ And she gives way to her grief,” said Dora; I always 
envy the people who give way to their grief. They gen- 
erally get over it so soon.” • 

I do not think Lady Darnel will get over her grief 
very soon. Aunt Dora, if my father is taken away from 
us,” said Grace, with a stifled sob. 

^^How pale you are looking,” said Edward Colchester. 

I don’t believe you have had any fresh air since this 
trouble began. Will you come for a turn on the terrace? 
it is a lovely afternoon.” 

Yes,” said Grace, rising suddenly, I will come. I 
think I should go mad if I stayed in this house any longer. 
I must go upstairs and hear the last report of my father, 
and then I will go for a ramble in the garden. You’ll 
come, Aunt Dora?” 

^^No, Grace; I shall not leave the house. I can exist 
without fresh air.” 

Grace looked embarrassed, but having accepted Mr. 
Colchester’s invitation, she could not recede all at once. 
The withdrawal would be ^too marked. She went away, 
and came back in about ten minutes with a white Shet- 
land shawl wrapped round her shoulders. 

There is no change in the sick-room,” she said. It 
is always the same answer — no change — no improvement. 
Oh, those nurses, what machines they are! I wonder if 


102 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


they seem a little more human when their own people are 
ill? Come, Mr. Colchester.’’ 

She went out to the terrace, 'walking very quickly in her 
nervous agitation. It was an infinite relief to feel the 
fresh autumnal breeze blowing over her face and hair, to 
breathe in a wider space. It seemed to her as if it 'ti^re 
weeks since she had felt that cool reviving air, and looked 
across that wide expanse of lawn to the wider region of 
oaks and beeches which had been the fairy forest of her 
childish fancies. Through just such a wood Eed Ki ding- 
hood had gone unconscious to her doom. Through just 
such a wood Fatima’s brothers had ridden to the rescue 
of Bluebeard’s last victim. In just such a wood Beauty 
had dwelt meekly in the Palace of the enchanted Beast; 
in just such a wood she had bent over the dying monster, 
breathing soft words of pity into his ear, and had seen 
him restored to the grace and glory of manhood, the per- 
fect Prince of Fairyland. With all her heart Grace loved 
the domain that had been her cradle and her play-ground. 

It was a delicious afternoon, the low sun golden above 
the undulating line of beeches, with their rounded crests 
dark against the glowing sky, wave above wave, billowy 
masses of dark verdure, soon to be touched with the 
varied hues of decay. 

For a little while Grace and her companion walked 
about the lawn in silence, she too unhappy to speak, he 
racking his brain for something appropriate, or at least an 
inoffensive subject of conversation. 

How well the shrubberies are looking,” he said at last, 
feeling as if the remark were a flash of inspiration. 

Now the shrubberies had been Sir Allan’s peculiar 
pride. He had filled them with new and rare conifers, 
with every variety of flowering shrubs; they had been fed 
with the most scientific preparations that can enrich the 
soil; they had been watched, and sheltered from the 
frost, and cared for as if they had been precious human 
things. 

Yes, they are too lovely,” said Grace. I never saw 
picea nobilis look so superb as it does this year. My 
father is so proud of it. And to think that he may never 
•see those trees again!” 

Here she began to cry, and again Edward Colchester 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


103 


felt that he was a brute. He seemed predestined to say 
brutish things, to put his finger-tip upon open wounds. 

He walked by her side while she dried her tears, his 
heart aching for her, his love flowing out toward her like 
a magnetic stream. They were in one of the winding 
shrubbery paths, which they two had trodden many a 
time, gayly, carelessly, as comrades and playfellows, in 
those remote days before his friendly feeling for a pretty 
girl had ripened into passionate love, before trouble or care 
had darkened her young life. It was a path completely 
screened by conifers and evergreens out of sight of the 
house. In a forest they could not have been more alone. 
At the end of the path there was a little Swiss chalet, a 
fantastic summer-house of carved wood in which Mr. 
Colchester had often h^d five o’clock tea after a warm 
afternoon at lawn-tennis. It was Grace’s favorite retreat 
in fine weather, and her books and drawing materials 
were scattered on the rustic table just as she had left them 
a week ago. She looked at them with a listlgss air, and 
stopped to put the books together. 

‘‘ Browning, Maud, La Petite Fadette,” she said, as 
she gathered up the volumes. How happy was that 
last morning I sat here reading. Such a warm morning 
— like July. Everything was so lovely, the air so delicious. 
I forgot that I had a care.” 

‘‘ What care could you have to forgot a week ago?” 
asked Colchester. 

‘‘Oh, there are cares in every life. Everybody has 
some kind of burden to carry. But I never knew what 
real sorrow meant till my father’s life was in danger.” 

Her tears flowed afresh at the thought of that peril, and 
then Edward Colchester forgot himself altogether, and 
caught her in his arms, and kissed the sad, tear-stained 
face again and again. 

“ My beloved, let me share your grief, let me be all in 
all to you in your day of sorrow. My dearest, you know 
how fondly I love you.” 

It was all done in a moment. She was in his arms, his 
beloved, accepting his devotion, the passive recipient of 
betrothal kisses, for such kisses could mean nothing less 
than betrothal. They were the first lover’s kisses that 
had ever touched her lips. Never before had she felt the 


104 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


passionate pulse of a lover’s heart beating against her own. 
She tore herself from his arms. 

“ How can yon, how can you?” she cried, reproachfully. 

To talk of love when my father lies on his death-bed! I 
know they all believe it is his death-bed. I hate you for 
such heartlessness.” 

Gracie, is it heartless to adore you, to want to comfort 
you in your sorrow?” he asked, reproachfully. 1 have 
been quietly worshiping you for a year — waiting, waiting, 
for some sign of awakening love on your part. I should 
not have dared to speak even yet, only to see you in tears 
and not be able to comfort you was too much.” 

You can not comfort me. I am full of trouble,” she 
answered, passionately. 

She had flung her books upon the table, and had left 
the chalet hurriedly, and was walking quickly along the 
path that led to the house. He felt that she was angry 
with him — that he had, as it were, violated the sanctity of 
her sorrow — and yet he believed himself her accepted 
lover. For one delicious moment she had rested in his 
arms, her eyes had looked at him, not in anger, but in 
answering love. Those lips of hers had yielded themselves 
to hi^ kisses. He knew that she loved him — that he had 
but to wait for a more fitting time to press his suit. And 
he had her father upon his side, the good old colonel, too. 
He had fortune, youth, everything that makes fitness in 
union. And he knew of no likely rival. Could he doubt 
thet he should win her? His heart glowed with triumph 
as he hurried .after her swift footsteps, overtook her, and 
stood at her sfde. 

Forgive me, Grace. I will wait for a happier day,” 
he said. 

That day will never come for you and me,” she an- 
swered, coldly. Pray forget that you have been so fool- 
ish, as I shall try to do.” 

Forget those kisses? ^ever! Grace, I will not be put 
off like this. I will wait. I will not even speak of my 
love until your father is out of danger — but you must not 
thrust me from you coldly; you must not deny my right 
to claim you by and by.” 

Never, never, never,” she said. I tell you it cau 
never be.” 

‘^Then you do not love me,” he cried, seizing her 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


105 


hands, holding her there on the path, face to face with 
him, beside himself with love and anger, ‘‘You were 
deceiving me just now, or I was mad and deceived myself. 
You do not care a straw for me. Say that, Grace — only 
say that you don’t care for me, and you shall never see my 
face again.” 

She could not say it; nor for the life of her could she 
so belie her beating heart, which had gone out to him as a 
bird to its nest, which belonged to him as a slave to her 
master. 

“I can not engage myself to you,” she said. “There 
are reasons.” 

“ What reasons? There can be no reason except that 
you detest me. Wliy not say so at once, and make an end 
of the matter? If there were obstacles I would overcome 
them. Give me one grain of love— no bigger than a mus- 
tard seed — and I would remove mountains. But there are 
no obstacles. We have everything on our side. Your 
father likes me — he was my father’s dearest friend — he 
would like to see us married.” 

“lean never marry you,” said Grace, sadly. “Why 
do you press me with painful questions? Please let go 
my hands.” 

He released her instantly, with a gloomy look. 

“ 1 see. There is some one else whom you love better,” 
he said. 

“ No, there is no one,” she said, impetuously, and then 
repented that she had so spoken. 

“ Grace, you are a mystery. If you would only say 
that you hate me — ” 

“ I will not tell a lie,” she answered, walking on toward 
the house, he still by her side. “If you have any com- 
passion for my present unhappiness, you will say no 
more.” 

“ Then I will say no more. I know I am a brute— an 
utterly brutish brute. I suppose, having behaved so 
badly, I must not come to Darnel any more.” 

“ You can do as you like about that,” she answered, 
wearily. 

“ Then I shall like to come. Life would be a burden 
if I could not see you now and then.” 

In her heart of hearts she liked to see him, for her life 
would have been a blank without that pleasant com- 


106 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


panionship. She had snubbed him unmercifully ever 
since her return from Paris, and yet he had never wavered 
in his devotion. And he had his reward, though he knew 
it not; for he had won her in spite of herself. But she 
was a true Darnel, and had a loyal regard for a promise 
once given. And in an evil hour she had given a promise 
which bound her to Victor de Camillac or to life-long 
celil)acy. 

^‘Good-bye,” she said, curtly, and Mr. Colchester was 
fain to accept the dismissal. 

They were close to the hall door by this time. He had 
no excuse for lingering any longer. 

Good-bye, Grace — my Grace,” he said, with a final 
flash of determination. 

And then as he walked slowly down the avenue he re- 
peated to himself ^^My Grace, mine, yes, my dear, mine, 
for I mean to win you.” 

He was sorely troubled in mind as he walked back to 
the manor through those rural Wiltshire lanes, with their 
tall, tangled hedgerows. 

That severer order of agriculture which cuts down 
hedges to the quick, absorbs waste places, and uproots the 
timber of centuries, had not yet spoiled the manor. Mr. 
Colchester’s farmers wore content to be slovenly and 
picturesque, as their fathers and grandfathers had been 
before them, under the sway of the easiest of landlords. 

He went home full of trouble and perplexity. There 
had been that in Grace’s eyes as she looked upon him 
which seemed to him an assurance of her love. There had 
been that in the sweet mouth, with lips half parted and 
faintly tremulous, which told of deepest feeling. For 
some blissful moments he had held her in his arms, flushed 
with triumph, believing himself her accepted lover. And 
-then she had thrust him from her, and told him that §he 
could never be his wife. There was a contradiction here, 
that argued a mystery, a mystery in the life of a girl who 
had been to him as the incarnation of purity and truth. 
If she could deceive, if she could stoop to double-dealing, 
there was an end of Edward Colchester’s faith in woman- 
hood. 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


107 


CHAPTER XL 

I LOVE, AND HE LOVES ME AGAIN.’’ 

Colonel Stukely spent a long and wearisome after- 
noon dawdling about the lanes and little clusters of 
laborers’ cottages which called themselves villages, entei*- 
ing into conversation with every man, woman, and cliild 
whom he could beguile into a dialogue, and suffering in- 
tensely from his conscientious efforts to understand a 
patois which was almost as a foreign language to him. In 
this wise, performing the part of the benevolent friend of 
humanity, a character partaking the idiosyncracies of 
Haroun-cil-Raschid -and Sir Roger de Coverley, he heard 
much irrelevant matter, from village politics and hot- 
house philosophy to the smallest domestic details, with the 
full, true, and particular account of the speaker’s latest 
^^stand-further” with the squire, the parson, or the 
bailiff. But in all the flood of talk to which he listened 
with a sublime patience, the good colonel could discover 
not one solitary sentence bearing upon the task which he 
had set himself to perform. 

Riding slowly homeward he tried to cheer himself with 
the notion that as' he had failed in the endeavor to trace 
the footsteps of Victor Camillac, so also must Mr. Pen- 
wern fail. He had no apprehension that his talents in the 
detective line were inferior to those of the professional 
inquirer. Indeed, it seemed to him that his education 
and experience must be more than a match for the technic- 
al training of Scotland Yard. He argued, therefore, that 
the young Frenchman had got clear off, and that he had 
nothing to fear for his beloved goddaughter. 

The eight o’clock dinner was a dismal functio.n. Lady 
Darnel still kept her room. Miss Darnel sat in her 
brother’s place and went through the ceremonial with a 
fortitude which savored of martyrdom. Grace edged her 
chair as close as she could to "the colonel’s, ate hardly 
anything, and was curiously absent-minded, looking up 
at her godfather every now and then with a little appeal- 
ing glance which went straight to his heart, smiling to 
herself now and then, as she looked down at her plate. 


108 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


with a strange shy smile, and at one stage of the entertain- 
ment suddenly bursting into tears. 

My dear Grace, if you can not command yourself bet- 
ter than this, you should follovv Lady Darnel’s example, 
and hide yourself from the light of day,” remonstrated 
her aunt. 

Let her cry,” said the colonel, patting the girl’s 
shoulder affectionately. Tears are a relief, and why 
should she repress the signs of her grief. There is no 
secret about her sorrow. We are all of the same mind.” 

The colonel had no inclination to sit alone over his 
claret. He left the dining-room with Miss Darnel and 
her niece. In the hall Grace put her arm through his. 

Come on the terrace for a little walk,” she said. 

My dear Grace, there is no moon, and it is very cold,” 
urged Dora. What pleasure can there be in walking on 
the terrace on such a night?” 

Ho pleasure. I do not expect pleasure, but I must 
have air. I am stifling for want of air.” 

I should have thought you had air enough this after- 
noon, when you were tearing about the grounds with Mr. 
Colchester,” retorted her aunt, sharply. 

Will you come, godpapa,” asked Grace, ignoring the 
reproof. You don’t mind walking up and down the 
terrace with me for a quarter of an hour, even if it is dark 
and cold.” 

I shall like it very much, if you put on your jacket.” 

Grace ran upstairs, obtained the latest bulletin of her 
father’s condition — always the same hopeless report — and 
came down in her sealskin jacket. In another minute she 
and the colonel were out of doors, and beyond the search- 
ing eye and the keen ear of Dora. The night was moon- 
less, but not altogether dark. The stars were shining 
above the-tree-tops in the park, a sweeping line of foliage 
which shutout the world beyond. 

^‘Any news?” asked Grace, excitedly, hanging on the 
colonel’s arm. 

Hot a word. I believe that unlucky young fellow 
has got clear off, and you may wash your hands of him 
and his fate.” 

I can not do that,” said Grace, gloomily; I am under 
a promise.” 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 109 

No promise can hold good with a criminal,” answered 
the colonel. 

A criminal! In heaven’s name, what do you mean?” 

I mean that a detective has^ been at Darnel this morn- 
ing, and that he has discovered the foot-prints of a stranger 
across the flower-beds, just such foot-prints as would be 
made by that wretched down-at-heel creature we ^aw on 
tlie common. There was a considerable sum of money 
stolen out af Lady Darnel’s morning-room, money which 
we all know to have been there on the night your father 
was shot. It is clear to the man from Scotland Yard 
that Sir Allan was wounded by a stranger who entered 
that room and stole that money. Now, my reading of the 
story is, that this Camillac was hanging about the house 
on that night, in the hope of getting an interview with 
you, that he was on the balcony for some time, saw the 
money put away, and took advantage of Lady Darnel’s 
leavyig the room to enter and possess himself of that 
money. He was surprised by your father, and turned 
upon him — in the manner we know.” 

^^No, no; it is too horrible! The man I once loved, the 
man I promised to marry — a midnight robber — a murderer! 
It can not be,” protested Grace. “ Surely I am not an 
utter fool. I know that man was a gentleman by birth, 
a gentleman by education and breeding.” 

Gentlemen drift to the gutter; gentlemen join the 
criminal classes every day in the year, my poor Grace,” 
said the colonel, gravely. ‘‘ I do not suppose for a mo- 
ment that you would mistake a cad for a gentleman; but 
there is such a thing as a reckless man gone thoroughly 
to the bad, and I’m afraid your Victor de Camillac is just 
such a one. All we can hope is that he has got clear off, 
and that your dear father’s wound may not prove fatal.” 

Fatal! Oh, God, if it were, I should be my father’s 
murderer — for it was my folly that brought that? man to 
this house. Oh, why should so trivial a sin bring such a 
terrible punishment? If my father were to die I should 
never lift up my head again. I should pray God to end 
my days. I never, never could know peace of mind any 
more !” 

She clung to her kind old friend, sobbing hysterically, 
beside herself with horror. 

‘‘ My dear child, don’t give way to such grief,” said the 


no 


CUT BY THE COUi^TY. 


colonel, soothingly. God grant your father may recover. 
And, after all, tliis suspicion of mine may be wrong. The 
criminal may be a stranger of whom we know nothing. 
Eemember, it is only a conjecture on my part.” 

If you were right, if it were he, my sin would have 
been the cause of my father’s death,” said Grace; and then 
she remembered that bitter cry of Lady Darnel’s, those 
awful words spoken by the lips of a sleeper: My fault, 
my fault, I murdered him!” 

How strange that those self-accusing words, uttered 
unconsciously, should be echoed now by Grace, waking 
and sentient. 

No, I will not believe it,” she said, presently. After 
all, there is no evidence to go upon. There is no real 
ground for such a hideous suspicion. I believe that poor 
creature fell down somewhere, ill or dying, and that he 
never came to Darnel Park.” 

You may be right, Grace. My view of the case was 
only a succession of conjectures. I should never Have 
thought of it if that man from Scotland Yard had not set 
my wits at work. There is something infectious in the 
maneuvers of these people. Only I thought it right to 
tell you everything, more especially as you insist upon con- 
sidering yourself bound to this adventurer.” 

I insist upon acting as a woman of honor should act,” 
answered Grace, with a heroic air. You men are always 
talking about honor as if it were a peculiar property of 
your sex. You pretend to think that we poor weak things 
don’t even know what it means. Now, I want you to un- 
derstand that you are guilty of scandalous injustice. Mne 
Frau ein Wort. ” 

“ And you consider yourself bound to a beggar:” 

consider myself bound to him till he releases me. I 
know he would release me from my promise if I could 
only see him and tell him everything.” 

^'Indeed! There is something that he must be told, 
then ?” 

Yes,” murmured Grace, hanging her pretty head. 

Colonel Stukely lifted the bent head between his hands, 
and kissed his goddaughter’s forehead. 

‘^My pet, I begin to understand,” he said, ‘‘I sus- 
pected all through that weary dinner that you had some- 
thing to tell me. You have found out at last that a frank, 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


Ill 


honest young fellow whom you have known since child- 
hood is better worth loving than an unknown foreigner 
whom you met by chance in a picture gallery/’ 

“ Mr. Colchester was walking in the shrubbery with 
me this afternoon,” faltered Grace, and he asked me to 
be his wife. It was very, very sudden; and he took me so 
by surprise that I’m afraid I allowed him to think that I 
, am rather fond of him.” 

I AVhat was it you said, Grace?” 

I It was not anything I said to him. It was only my 
manner.” 

‘^Oh,” said the colonel, ‘Mt was your manner, was it? 
There is a good deal in manner. And I suppose by the 
time you left the shrubbery you had engaged yourself to 
young Colchester, in spite of your promise to the French- 
man. This is your view of ezne Frau ein Wort, I take it, 
one at a time.” 

You insist upon your mean opinion of me,” cried 
Grace, stamping her foot. ‘^No, I did not engage myself 
to him. I told him that I could never marry him. I 
tried to tell him that I did not care for him, but my lips 
would not speak the false words. I know now that I do 
care for him, that the other was only a foolish infatuation, 
of which I have good reason to be ashamed.” 

I am glad you have found out the truth at last, Grace. 
Now, my darling, you mustn’t fret any more. Leave 
everything to Providence and your old godfather. Hark, 
there are vv^heels coming up the avenue. Who can it be 
at such an hour? The doctor paid his last visit before 
dinner. ” 

It was Mr. Penwern in a fly from the village. Colonel 
Stnkely hurried back to the house, dreading, yet eager, to 
hear, the detective’s account of his investigations. Mr. 
Penwern was shown into the library, where the colonel 
found him closeted with Dora Darnel, who had not lost a 
minute in going to him. 

Well, Mr. Penwern, what’s your news?” asked the 
colonel, taking the case out of Dora’s hands. 

The detective had an idea that the money and the au- 
thority were both on the side of the lady; but there was 
that in the Afghan hero’s bearing and tone which could 
not be slighted. 

^'My afternoon has not been unprofitable/’ answered 


112 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


Penwern. I have got the bills out — fifty of them — and I 
believe I am on the right track for the man.’’ 

^‘Indeed,” said the colonel, feeling very uncomfortable. 
He had a hideous dread of publicity for that little episode 
of Grace’s school-girl life, a dread which was intensified by 
the circumstance of Colchester’s proposal. 

Yes, I think I am on the right scent this time. The 
bills had an immediate effect. Most people had heard of 
Sir Allan’s wound, but the robbery of the notes was news 
to everybody. I distributed the bills with my own hands, 
and the villagers at whose shops I left them had all a good 
deal to say about the trouble at the great house. The old 
woman, who keeps a general shop — grocery, clothes, 
boots — ” 

Mrs. Mopp,” said Dora. 

Mrs. Mopp. Yes, that’s the lady. She insisted on 
my helping her to spell through the bill from beginning to 
end. When she came to the part about the notes, she be- 
came tremendously excited. wouldn’t mind laying a 
wager it was that scoundrel did it,’ she said. ‘ What 
scoundrel?’ asked I. ^ Jaker,’ said she, and she had such 
a rooted idea that I ought to know all about Mr. Jaker 
that I could hardly induce her to tell me anything about 
the gentleman.” 

He is a very disreputable person,” said Dora, looking 
up at the colonel, a poacher, a man who has been in 
prison more times than any one can remember. He lives 
half in and half out of prison. People are very kind to 
his wretched wife and children, who are always in a state 
of semi-starvation. But last year he turned savage and 
set himself deliberately to annoy Mr. Colchester and the 
hunting men. He shot a number of foxes, and waylaid 
the hunting people when they were drawing the covers, 
and used most abominable language; and since thun he 
has been altogether an outlaw, and his family are allowed 
to starve. It is considered an offense against every mem- 
ber of the hunt to give them so much as a loaf of bread.” 

‘‘Not a man likely to bechanginga twenty-pound note, 
honestly come by,” said the detective. 

“ Do you mean to say that Jaker has been changing 
twenty-pound notes?” 

“ He changed one at eight o’clock yesterday morning 
at Mrs. Mopp’s shop, where he bought himself a regular 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


113 


rig-out — boots, corduroy suit, flannel shirts, pilot over- 
coat, sou’-wester. Mrs. Mopp had not done so big a line 
for years, she told me. He made her rout him out an old 
tea chest to carry his kit, and walked off with it to Scad- 
leigh Station, in time for the nine o’clock train to Loiir 
don. He told nobody where he was going, but there is an 
idea that he meant Canada.” 

He has often talked of Canada, and the great things 
he could do there,” said Miss Darnel, have heard as 
much from his wife, whom I used to visit at one time.” 

‘^Before her husband put himself out of court by shoot- 
ing foxes,” remarked the colonel, with a sudden air of 
cheerfulness, which deeply offended Dora. 

It was such an inexpressible relief to him to see the 
detective on an entirely new scent, that he for the moment 
forgot the Cloud of sorrow brooding over the house of Dar- 
nel. 

paid Mrs. Jaker a visit this evening,” said the de- 
tective. I was surprised to find what roomy quarters 
your poor have to starve in. Why, in London a house as 
big as Jaker’s cottage would be made to accommodate 
forty people. The cubical contents of the pigstye are 
more than of a room that lodges a family in Whitechapel.” 

‘^It is an old homestead that once went with a small 
farm,” explained Dora. When the land was taken away 
to join to the next farm, the old cottage remained empty 
for some years. And then it was let cheap to Jaker, who 
was not quite such a bad character in those days. I don’t 
suppose he has paid any rent for the last ten years; but 
the cottage is in an out-of-the way place, and would not 
suit everybody.” 

I should think not, indeed, ma’am,” said the detective, 
shuddering. I never saw such a cut-throat place. The 
cottage is at the end of a long lane, ankle deep in mud, 
which leads to nowhere.” 

It is an accommodation lane,’' remarked Dora. 

Lord knows whom it can be intended to accommo- 
date, ma’am. The cottage is half a mile from any other 
house, and how any Christian in his sober senses could be 
tempted to go there, except for motives of benevolence, is 
more than I understand. However, I found my way there 
this evening — in the dark, too— and a nice state my boots 
were in when I got there. I had to go back to the inn 


114 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


and get myself brushed up before I could venture to show 
myself here. But I saw Mrs. Jaker. and I put her through 
a pretty close catechism; and I don’t think there’s any doubt 
that, in consequence of the telegram .1 sent to Scotland 
Yard this morning, Mr. Jaker will be stopped at Liverpool 
before he can get on board the vessel that was to take him 
to Canada.” 

‘'You believe he means to try for Canada?” inquired 
the colonel. 

“ From what I get out of Mrs. Jaker I don’t think 
there’s the slightest doubt of it.” 

“ Ml’S. Jaker is a very artful person,” said Miss Darnel. 
“I know she has always contrived to deceive we.” 

The detective smiled quietly, and to himself, as it were. 
He could not see that this fact had any bearing on the case. 
It was one thing to hoodwink a spinster brought up in 
cotton wool; it was another thing to deceive a man edu- 
cated in Scotland Yard. 

“Did you find out whether Jaker has left his wife any 
of the money?” 

“ He may have left her a pound or two to keep the 
wolf from the door till he chooses to send her the passage 
money for her and her children. They were swarming 
about the place like rabbits in a warren, poor little beg- 
gars. He promises to send for her directly he gets there 
and has looked about him a bit. I don’t believe she has 
any idea of a'l-obbery, or of his being possessed of a large 
sum of money. Ho told her that he had won ten pounds 
at Shiveram races, putting five shillings on a horse that 
stood at 40 to 1 in the betting. She believed him, poor 
soul, though it was a puzzle to her to know where he got 
the five shillings. And it’s my belief he has left her to 
starve or to live upon charity till he chooses to send her 
the passage money.” 

“ You don’t know Mrs. Jaker,” said Dora. “ From 
what I know of her character I should say she knows all 
about the robbery, and has got the lion’s share of the 
money in her possession.” 

“ Do you really think so?” said the detective, with a 
troubled look. “ If I thought that I’d get a magistrate’s 
warrant to-morrow morning, and search the house; but 
she looked to me such a weak, helpless, trodden down 
creatnre/’ 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


116 


That’s all acting. When Jaker annoyed the hunting 
men she used to go with him, and her language was worse 
than his. Mr. Colchester said it was she who goaded him 
on to do it.” 

ril get a warrant to-morrow morning,” said Mr. Pen- 
wern.” 

You must have a good appetite for supper after such 
a laborious afternoon and evening,” said the colonel. 
‘‘Will you order something for Mr. Penwern, Miss Dar- 
nel?” 

He rang the bell, and Dora informed the footman who 
answered it that Mr. Penwern would take supper in the 
housekeeper’s room. This was a fall almost as big as 
Wolsey’s, after the elegant little luncheon with which Mr. 
Penwern had been regaled at the colonel’s bidding. “ So 
like a maiden aunt,” thought the detective, as he went off 
through long corridors and winding ways to that humbler 
and busier portion of the mansion, which was as the old 
town of Edinburgh to the new town. In this more lowly 
quarter, however, he was well cared for, and contrived to 
spend a jovial evening. 


CHAPTEE XII. 

“ A POWER OF HELL O’ERCLOUDS THY UHDERSTAHDIHG.” 

As an old campaigner Colonel Stukely found no diffi- 
culty in awaking at any hour of the morning at which 
he wished to rise. He needed to victimize no servant who 
must rise still earlier to call him — nor did he require to 
have his courage stimulated by a cup of hot tea. He went 
to his bedroom directly the detective had retired to the 
servants’ quarters, and he told himself as he lay down to 
rest that he would be astir at half past four o’clock next 
morning; not with any idea of cub-hunting, but with the 
serious intention of getting an interview with Mrs. Jaker 
before detective or search warrant could reach her cottage. 
Before bidding Miss Darnel good-night he had contrived 
to ascertain from that lady the exact situation of the cot- 
tage. It lay within a mile of the park gates, in a particu- 
larly lonely district, given over to agriculture. Half a 
dozen small farms had been rolled into one, and the home- 


116 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


steads belonging to them had been pulled down or turned 
into laborers’ cottages. The Jakers’ domicile was situated 
at the end of a long lane, just where the uttermost limit 
of cultivated land met the edge of a wild stretch of com- 
mon. It had been a house in the time of the Stuarts, and 
it had a picturesque air even now, in the lowest stage of 
neglect and decay, the rotten and ragged thatch half hid- 
den under a goodly growth of weeds and grasses, the good 
old leaded lattices with hardly a whole pane among them. 
The Jakers were squatters rather than tenants, and would 
have been turned out neck and crop years ago had it not 
been for an easy going landlord and the little peculiarities 
of Mrs. Jaker, who always had a baby at hand at the hour 
of any financial crisis. It was sometimes a baby that mo- 
ment born — anon a baby that very morning dead. Living 
or dead, the baby was always ready for the emergency. 
It was Mrs. Jaker’s ace of trumps. 

Having told himself that he should be astir at half past 
four, the colonel woke a few minutes before the hour. He 
had scarcely sounded his repeater when the eight-day 
clock in the corridor chimed in with its four musical notes 
and then its four sonorous strokes upon the big bell. The 
colonel was up and in his bath within five minutes. Not 
a man he to yawn and loiter and think twice about leaving 
his pillow when there was business to be doife. 

It was pitch dark as 3’et — it would hardly be light by 
the time he should arrive at Mrs. Jaker’s cottage, but he 
calculated that a person of her condition would be an early 
riser, and he felt no compunction about knocking her up 
should she prove a slug-a-bed. He was bent upon seeing 
her before the detective arrived with his search warrant; 
so that in the event of her husband having obtained his 
plunder from Victor de Camillac the woman’s mouth 
might be sealed as to the existence and whereabouts of that 
obnoxious Frenchman. 

My friend Penwern ignores those foot-marks on the 
flower-beds now that he has started on another track,” the 
colonel thought as he walked briskly along the avenue 
under the cold October sky. Not very logical. That 
narrow sole and pointed heel could never have belonged to 
the boot of a rustic poacher, and yet those foot-marks have 
to be accounted for somehow, and I am not at all clear 
that Grrace’s admirer is safe out of the business.*^ 


CUT UY THE COUNTY. 


117 

Before going down -stairs the colonel had tapped softly 
at his friend^s door and had questioned the night nurse. 
Her reply was more favorable than usual.' The patient 
had spent a quieter night, the fever was a little less in- 
tense, the delirium less violent. All this was hopeful. 

There were patches of gray in the eastern sky by the 
time the colonel came to the end of the long, muddy lane 
and entered Mrs, Jaker’s neglected garden. The gate 
hung loose upon broken hinges, and several of its rails had 
been ruthlessly plucked off to serve for firewood. The 
palings were in the same condition, and afforded free ac- 
cess to vagabond swine. When Mrs. Jaker was asked why 
she did not keep her garden tidy, she replied that tidiness 
was impossible while the pigs came in and uprooted every- 
thing; but when she was asked why she and her husband 
did not patch up the palings and keep the pigs out, Mrs. 
Jaker became desperate and asked if pales dropped from 
the skies, and if Providence showered nails and hammers 
into poor people’s laps. For her part, she had neither 
wood, nor nails, nor hammer; and as for her landlord, he 
would see them all dead before he would do ajiy thing for 
them. This could scarcely be considered strange, inas- 
much as they did nothing for him in the shape of rent. 

Albeit the sky was gray in the east, and a faint admixt- 
ure of silvery light glorified the undulating lines of hill 
and woodland, Mrs. Jaker had not yet left her pillow 
when the colonel knocked with his stout oak stick at the 
cottage door. Slie put her head out of an upstair win- 
dow presently, however, and on hearing that he had par- 
ticular business with her, promised to be dawn in ten 
minutes. So the colonel strolled up and down the dreary 
little garden, with its stagnant puddles in depressed corners 
and its ragged regiment of barren cabbage stalks, and see- 
ing at least half an acre of ground given over to desola- 
tion, he wondered how it was that the country poor made 
so little of their opportunities. 

The cottage door opened while he stood at gaze above 
the cabbage-stalks, and he was admitted to the Jaker 
abode. Mrs. Jaker’s toilet was of the briefest, and the 
colonel could not help suspecting that she had slept in her 
gown. A swarm of healthy, handsome children, all in 
the last stage of rags and dirt, were squatting and scram- 
bling about the wide hearth, which had evidently belonged 


ns 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


to the farm-house kitchen. The few sticks of furniture 
were all in a ruinous condition, and it was not without 
careful selection that Mrs. Jaker found a chair which 
she could venture to offer to her guest. When he had 
seated himself she knelt on the hearth and lighted a fire 
of sticks and turf, which made a cheerful flare of light 
amidst the grayness of the early morning. While she was 
doing this she turned her head now and then and looked 
timidly and interrogatively at the colonel. She was scared 
by the appearance of a stranger at this unwonted hour; 
but she was accustomed to be visited from time to time 
by the ^‘gentry” who came to remonstrate with her upon 
her own and her husband’s misdoings. 

You had a stranger here last night, Mrs. Jaker,” be- 
gan the colonel. 

‘‘ Yes, sir, there was a person here.” 

^‘Exactly. I know all about him and what passed. 
You have not heard the last of that person and his in- 
quiries. It would have been wiser if you had told him 
the truth about that money which is to pay your husband’s 
passage to Canada and set you all up in a new country. 
It is a nice little fortune for a man like Jaker to drop 
into. It ought to buy him a pretty little farm out yon- 
der.” 

Mrs, Jaker paled at this speech, and a frightened look 
came into those mild blue eyes of hers, eyes which were 
apt to mislead strangers as to her character. 

‘'^Fortune, sir, ” she faltered. My poor husband had 
nothing but the ten pounds he won at the races.” 

Indeed! Then how came he to spend nearly ten 
pounds with the old woman at the shop? That would 
leave him very little for his passage money.” 

Hereupon Mrs. Jaker, with tears in her eyes, called 
upon the heavens and those who dwell therein to witness 
her truth. She had told the strange gentleman who 
called last night the truth, and nothing but the truth. If 
her husband had more money than those ten sovereigns 
won for him by the horse True Blue — which was a AVilt- 
shire-bred horse and well beknown to him, or Jaker would 
never have backed him — she knew it not. 

Come now, Mrs. Jaker, this is all very foolish,” said 
the colonel, in a friendly tone. Suppose I were to tell 
you that the person you saw last night is coming again 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


119 


this morning, and that in all probability he will take yon 
off to prison. A man in Jaker’s station doesn’t come by 
four hundred pounds in bank-notes without people asking 
questions, and as Jaker has made off it will be for you to 
answer those questions.” 

As the colonel uttered those words four hundred 
pounds,” he looked straight into Mrs. Jaker’s face; and 
every line in that face, hardened as the woman was by long 
experience in lying, told liim that.the shot had gone home. 
Sir Allan’s bank-notes had by some means or other fallen 
into Jaker’s hands. 

‘‘ I am here as your friend,” said the colonel. The 
man you saw last night is a member of the police, and you 
have nothing to hope for from him. I am here to help 
you, if I can. A sum of four hundred pounds was stolen 
from Sir Allan Darnel’s house last Tuesday night, and 
some of that money has been traced to your husband’s 
possession. How did he come by it? Was it he who shot 
Sir Allan?” 

No, sir, no ;” and again Mrs. Jaker called upon the 
Almighty to witness her truth. 

You have lied to me once already, when you told me 
Jaker won that money on the race-course. How can I 
believe that you are not lying now? A ruffian entered my 
friend’s house at midnight last Tuesday, stole a package 
of bank-notes and shot Sir Allan. The wound is likely 
to be fatal. Should Sir Allan die before the trial comes on, 
the burglar who shot him will stand charged with his mur- 
der. Your husband has had a taste of the law, and he 
knows that he can’t shoot even a rabbit with impunity. 
He will find it a stiffer business now that he has shot a 
man.” 

He never lifted a hand against Sir Allan. He hasn’t 
been inside the park since the time he was falsely accused 
of stealing one of the deer — three years ago.” 

How did he come by that money, then?” asked the 
colonel, with a severe look. 

Almost unconsciously he put on the voice and manner 
with which he had been wont to address rebellious Sepoys 
in days gone by. Mrs. Jaker quailed before him. 

‘^He found it,” she faltered. 

Found it? Preposterous! People don’t find money 
in hedges. He must baye stolen those notes eithey from 


120 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


the cabinet in Lady Darners morning- room, or else he 
stole them from the person of the man who first stole 
them. The thing may be a double robbery, but it is a 
robbery all the same, and you must know your husband to 
be a thief.” 

‘^No, sir.” Again, Mrs. Jaker called upon the celestial 
powers. No, sir; my husband may have been a poach- 
er, but he is not a thief, still less a murderer. Whatever 
money he had when he went away he came by that mon 
honestly. It was given to him as a free gift.” 

That won’t do,” said the colonel. 

Just at this moment there ran through the old cottage 
an awful blood-freezing sound. It was a peal of laughter, 
long and loud and wild and shrill; such laughter as no 
one would expect to hear outside a lunatic asylum. 

Why, you have a maniac on the premises,” exclaimed 
the colonel. How is that?” The laughter died away, 
and then there came a wild snatch of song: 

Grevy a Charenton ! Gambetta a Toulon ! 

Vive le sang! Vive le sang! 
******* 

That was enough for Colonel Stukely. Without wait- 
ing for leave from Mrs. Jaker he made for the narrow 
staircase in a corner of the room and rushed upstairs as 
if he had been mounting a breach. There were two rooms . 
above — the door of the first was wide open. Mrs. Jaker’s 
den evidently. The door of the second was shut, and 
from within came another peal of laughter, almost demo- 
niac in its wide shrillness. 

Otro toro,” cried a voice as shrill as the laugh. 

Otro toro! Seville, the land of poetry and love, the 
land of song and dance, of bull-fights aud beautiful 
women. Spain — yes, Spain is the place for me.” 

This time the words were English, spoken as only En- 
glish lips can speak. Yet, surely, it was a Frenchman 
who sung that snatch of the Carmagnole just now; and it 
was a Frenchman of whom Colonel Stukely was in quest. 

He opened the door and stood on the threshold looking 
into the cottage bedchamber, a fair-sized room, under a 
sloping roof, and lighted by a good old dormer window. 

The young man whom he had last seen lying among the 
gorse and heather was stretched on a pallet under the 



CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


121 


window. . His head was propped up against the plastered 
wall, and his eyes were staring straight before him, while 
his thin hands played with the coverlet. Suddenly, while 
the colonel stood watching him, he crouched into a corner 
of the wall, and flung up his arms above his head like a 
man recoiling from an enemy. 

“^‘The bull!’’ he shrieked, the bull is coming at me — 
keep him off, keep him off. No, it is not the bull. 
Worse, worse, ten tim.es worse. It is her husband, in his 
winding-sheet, bedabbled with blood. I could never stand 
blood — keep him off, keep him off!” 

He fell back upon his wretched mattress, his face 
flushed to crimson, his pupils dilated, the eyeballs rolling 
restlessly, perspiration rolling in thick beads down his 
forehead and hollow cheeks. He was a victim to a disease 
which the colonel knew only too well, and had seen but 
too often among Anglo-Indian brandy-drinkers, men who 
had succumbed to the temptations of the climate, and 
who were sipping brandy and water all day long. He had 
seen just such paroxysms, and he knew that for the time 
being they meant raging madness. And this unhappy 
wretch was Grace Darnel’s plighted lover, and if Mr. 
Penwern came to the cottage by and by with his search 
warrant, he would see this young man, and discover the 
real state of the case — arrest him, most likely, on sus- 
picion — an arrest which would be followed by an inquiry 
that might bring Grace’s name before the public. How 
could this wretched creature, maddened by drink, be ex- 
pected to keep Miss Darnel’s secret? 

The colonel looked at his watch. It was a quarter to 
seven. There was time yet to do something before the 
detective should appear with his warrant. Mrs. Jaker 
had followed him upstairs; she was standing at his elbow, 
watching her strange lodger. 

Come down-stairs,” said Colonel Stukely; ^^you can 
do nothing for that unfortunate wretch. I see you have 
been giving him brandy,” he added, pointing to an empty 
bottle and a glass on a chair beside the pallet. 

‘^He begged so hard for it that I was obliged to get 
some for him,” answered the woman, apologetically. 

How many bottles has he drank since he has been 
here? You had better tell me the truth.” 


122 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


“ Three — no — I believe it is four/^ Mrs. Jaker replied, 
meekly. 

She was quite overcome by that air of command which 
was an old habit of the coloneFs. 

That means a bottle a day. I suppose you know that 
brandy is a deadly poison for a man in his state ?’^ 

No, indeed, sir. It was the only thing that kept him 

lip.” 

Don’t you think that a doctor would have known 
better what was. good for him. But you dared not send 
for a doctor,” 

They had descended the stairs by this time, and the 
colonel and Mrs. Jaker were standing face to face in the 
lower room. The children, not seeing any prospect of a 
formal breakfast, had }»ossessed themselves of sundry old 
crusts and stale slices from a chaotic cupboard, and had 
gone out into the windy garden to gnaw them, in the 
company of two or three nomad pigs. 

Now, Mrs. Jaker, let there be no nonsense between 
you and me,” said the colonel, sternly. I want to save 
that young man if I can, and in saving him I may be able 
to save your husband, as in that young man’s absence 
there will be no evidence against Jaker. If the detective 
comes here with his search warrant before that young 
man has been got out of the way, tlie whole story of how 
he came here, and how Jaker took that money from him, 
will come out, and both Jaker and he will be transported 
for life. A packet of bank-notes stolen from tlie person 
is a more serious matter than a snared rabit, you know, 
Mrs. Jaker.” 

Mrs. Jaker did know it. She was trembling in every 
limb. All that deep-eyed hypocrisy and artfulness by 
which she had hitherto contrived to hoodwink society de- 
serted her at this crisis of her fate. The colonel, with 
his six feet two, broad shoulders and soldierly chest, 
bronzed countenance and fiercely curving gray mustache, 
was the most terrible being she had ever looked upon. 
She stood before him in fear and trembling, and in her 
agony she told him the actual truth. 

Jaker had been out very late that night — it was the 
night after the races. He had won a few shillings on True 
Blue — not ten pounds, sir; no, that was a falsehood — and 
he stopped drinking at the Coach and Horses till after 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


123 


twelve o’clock — the landlord had to run 'em out, him an’ 
some others. The other men lived in the village, so Jaker 
had to come home alone. It’s a good two mile from the 
village, and he’d have to pass the park, as you know, sir. 
There’s a right of way in the day-time, sir, but not after 
the gates are shut.” 

Yes, yes, I know.” 

But Jaker was never one to stop for gates, so he got 
over the fence and crossed the park. It would save him 
a good half mile. He had got nearly over to the other 
side — where there’s a gate into the narrow lane that leads 
right on to the Harborough road, close against our own 
lane, when he heard some one groaning. It was so dark 
that he couldn’t tell at first where the groans came from, 
but when he had groped about a bit he found a man lying 
under a tree, dying, as he thought. He had a little bottle 
of spirits in his pocket that he was bringing home for my 
rheumatic shoulder, and he forced some of that down the 
man’s throat. It brought him to life, and he asked Jaker 
if he could find him a shelter for the night anywhere, he 
didn’t mind how humble, and he could afford to pay for it, 
as he’d got some money about him, poor as he looked. 
He had a wild sort of way of talking, Jaker said, and was 
all of a tremble. Jaker offered to take him to the Coach 
and Horses and knock the landlord up and get him a bed, 
but the man would not have that; he wanted to go where 
nobody would know anything about him. ^ Oh,’ says my 
husband, " I understand. You’re hiding.’ He didn’t say 
yes, nor he didn’t say no. So then Jaker offers to take 
him to our own cottage, and he says, ‘ Yes, that would do 
very well, and I can get off by the rail early to-morrow.’ 
So Jaker helps him over the gate and brings him home, 
and we makes him up a bed in the room upstairs. But 
when the bed was made it was hard work to get him to go 
to it. He sat over the fire and talked, talked, talked 
so fast and so wild like. And he offered my husbnad a 
sovereign to go and get him a bottle of brandy, and wo 
could hardly make him understand that it was the middle 
of the night, and that the public-houses were shut. He 
was dreadfully wild, but Jaker got him up to bed at last, 
almost carried him, as if he had been a child.” 

And when did Jaker find out about the money?” asked 
the colonel. 


124 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


It was the nexfc day. The young man was in a very 
low way till he got the brandy. He cried and said he 
wished he was dead, and took on dreadfully. But when 
my husband had fetched a bottle of brandy from the vil- 
lage, and he had drunk the best part of it, he cheered up 
a little. I made some broth for him in the afternoon, but 
he would hardly touch it, and he wouldn’t take tea or 
anything I offered him except brandy. He finished the 
bottle before night, and he was very abusive when my 
husband refused to get him another. In the evening ho 
went off into a wild state, and raved about something he 
had under his pillow — a treasure, he called it — and he 
laughed and siiid his mother had been very mean to him, 
but that he had got the best of the bargain.” 

^^His mother,” repeated the colonel, woiideringly. 

What could he mean by that?” 

And then he reflected that in a paroxysm of delirium 
tremens all a man’s words are alike meauingless and un- 
worthy of consideration. 

While my husband was sitting smoking his pipe be- 
side the bed the young man took the packet from under 
his pillow, and Jaker saw that it was a roll of bank-notes. 
The young man counted them over and talked about the 
money, and what he was going to do with it, as wild as 
any madman, and it seemed as if, for half a farthing, he’d 
have put the notes in the candle and burned them all. 
^ Do you think I care for money for its own sake?’ said 
he, ‘ Not a bit. I shall drink and game it away, I dare say, 
before I am three months older,’ and then Jaker thought 
what a shame it was that this madman should have all 
that money to spend in drink and cards, or perhaps to 
set a light to it when the wild fit was on him — money 
enough to take us all to Canada, where we’d been plan- 
ning to go for the last ten years, and to buy us a bit of 
land, and start us in an honest life — and so, late that 
night, when the young man had gone off into a restless 
sleep — he never sleeps above a quarter of an hour at a time 
— Jaker puts his hand softly under his pillow — ” 

And stole the notes.” 

No, sir. He took out the packet, and looked through 
the notes, and took half of them, leaving most of the small 
ones. He took two fifties and five twenties — just enough 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 125 

for our passage money, {ind to buy a little land over there 
— and he went off, early next morning.’’ 

Did he know of any ship sailing for Canada?” asked 
tlie colonel. 

Yes, there was one that was to sail from Plymouth 
yesterday, and he was in a fever to start by it.” 

Plymouth and yesterday. Mr. Penwern will be a diiy 
after the fair,” thought the colonel. 

^^Did your lodger find out that he had been robbed?” 
ho asked presently. 

“Lord, no,-sir. He counted the notes over and over 
again next day in a stupid way, like a man half asleep, 
and he seemed at first to think that there was something 
wrong. He missed my husband, too, but when I fetched 
him his little bottle of brandy he was quite content. 
‘ Your husband is dead,’ he said. believe 1 shot him.’ 
Late at night he had a wild fit, and thought the police 
were after him, and raved and went on dreadful, crying 
out that he should be hung for murder — just as his father 
was hung for murder before him. ^ No,’ he says, ‘they 
didn’t hang my father. He was mad and they locked 
him up.’” 

This fairly startled the colonel. Why, this was Stuart 
Mackenzie’s story. What could it mean? Could this 
young man be — Ho, the notion was too wild, too hor- 
rible. And then it was so idle to attach significance of 
any kind to the ravings of a maddened drunkard. 

In any case there was one thing needful to be done — a 
thing not easy to be done — and that was to get this young 
man out of the way before Penwern appeared upon the 
scene. How was this thing to be accomplished? This 
man must be conveyed away, and to some safe shelter — 
but where and how? Force might bo needful to remove 
him, and a vehicle of some kind. Yet how could the 
colonel dare to hire a vehicle in the village where every 
one had been put upon the qui vive by the bills offering a 
reward for the apprehension of the robber? Any proceed- 
ing at all out of the common was sure to arouse curiosity 
and to be talked of all over the village. Secrecy and ex- 
pedition were alike necessary. The colonel was fairly 
nonplussed. 

“ If we can not get that young man safely away from 
this house before eleven o’clock to-day you are likely to 


126 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


spend the night in jail,” he said to Mrs. Jaker, turning to 
her for aid in his desperation. She was shrewd and crafty, 
experienced in double dealing. She saw her own danger 
and she was prompt to face the situation. 

*‘l know of an old barn where he could be comfortable 
enough for the day,” she said. ‘‘ You could get him away 
from there after dark.” 

Yes, of course 1 could do that. I could get a trap 
from a distance,” said the colonel. How far is your 
barn ?” 

‘‘Ten minutes’ walk.” 

“ Good. Then we must try to get him to go there 
quietly, and of his own accord. I shall look to you to 
help me. To whom does this barn belong, by the way, 
and now can you be sure that no one will go chere before 
night?” 

“ It belongs to Mr. Sommerton, who rents the next 
farm,” answered Mrs. Jaker. “ He uses it in summer 
for some of Squire Colchester’s hunters, but it’s empty all 
the winter, and no one goes near it for weeks at a stretch. 
I don’t think there’s any fear of anybody going there to- 
day.” 

“ We must risk it, at any rate,” said the colonel. “ You 
had better stay down here, and be ready to go with me 
when I bring the young man down-stairs.” 

“I don’t think you’ll get him to budge,” Mrs. Jaker 
said, doubtfully. 

But the colonel had faith in himself. He had been 
called upon to deal with this species of lunacy before to- 
day. He had sublime patience, and l>e knew that if any- 
body could manage a maniac he could do it. 

He went upstairs again. The young man who called 
iiimself Oamillac was lying in a listless attitude, with his 
eyes half closed. The colonel stood in the doorway for 
some minutes observing him. The face was handsome 
even in its ruin. Pale, cadaverous, thin and wasted as it 
was, tdiere were traces of exceptional beauty in the deli- 
cately chiseled features, the perfect proportions of chin, 
and cheek, and brow, the rich mass of wavy black hair, 
the silken lashes and finely penciled eyebrows — just the 
kind of face to catch a school-girl’s fancy, to dazzle as the 
countenance of a demi-god. Nor was there any doubt 
that the man looked like a gentleman. * Those slender 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


127 


white hands lying on the patchwork coverlet were hands 
that never toiled. They had shaken the dice-box often 
enough, and handled the billiard-cue, but they had never 
labored for bread. 

Colonel Stukely shut the door sharply, and the sick 
man started up, looking at him, scared and flurried and 
eager. 

Are they there?’’ he asked. 

Yes,” answered the colonel at a venture, they have 
hunted you down. Get up and put on your boots. I’ll 
get you out of their way if I can.” 

The young man got up and staggered across the room. 
He was too weak to move steadily. And then he sunk 
into a broken-down chair, and sat looking about him 
vaguely. The boots were in a corner — dilapidated, worn- 
down dress boots. The mud had been roughly wiped off 
them witli a wisp of straw, and that was all. The colonel 
picked them up and looked at them before he handed 
them to their owner. Yes, they would have made just 
those prints which the detective had shown him on the 
flower-beds. There was the small heel, worn to the quick 
upon one side, the straight narrow sole and pointed toe — 
a French boot-maker’s masterpiece. 

Camillac put on the boots, looking up at the colonel 
Avith a suspicious air as he did so. 

How do I know that you are not one of them?” he 

said. 

Do I look like a policeman?” 

You don’t. But that doesn’t matter. You may have 
something to do with them, all the same.” 

I am Grace Darnel’s godfather, and I am here to save 
you.” 

Grace! She sent you then, and she does care for me 
still. Her letters have been devilish cold for the last six 
months. I began to think she wanted to throw me over.” 

There is no time to talk of that now. If those men 
get hold of you — ” 

Yes; are they down-stairs? How am I to get away 
without their seeing me?” 

Mrs. Jaker will keep them talking in the back room 
while you and I slip out by the front door.” 

Where are you going to take me?” 

The colonel explained his plan. He would get a trap at 


128 


CUT BY THE COUHTT. 


Darnel Park, and pick Camillac up at the barn a little after 
dusk. It should be a trap that he could drive himself, 
and he would take the younsj man to the station, and 
thence ship him off for London under the charge of his 
own valet, a man who might be trusted. 

AVhat the valet was to do with the young man when he 
got him to London was a j^oint which the colonel had not 
yet had time to consider. But it was a question which 
must be answered before the evening. 

Camillac was not easily managed. At one moment he 
was white with terror at the thought of those men below, 
believing in them firmly, and in the next moment he doubt- 
ed their existence, and was afraid of the colonel. He knelt 
down by the pallet presently and took the packet of notes 
from under his pillow and thrust it inside his ragged shirt. 
He did this in a secret way, glancing furtively at the 
colonel all the time. 

How do I know that you don’t mean to rob me?” he 
muttered. T have missed some money already in this 
liouse. I believe it is a den of thieves.” 

‘‘ If you suspect me I had better wish you good-morn^, 
ing,” said the colonel. 

This threw the wretch into a panic of fear and self- 
abasement. He flung his arms round the colonel’s neck; 
he entreated him to keep off those devils, who wanted to 
drag him away and hang him. 

I didn’t mean to kill him,” he said. I shot him 
without thinking. The pistol was there, don’t you know, 
ready to my hand, as if Satan himself had put it in my 
way. Save me, save me- -hide me. I am not a mur- 
derer.” 

‘^Be quick, then,” said the colonel, decisively; there 
is no time for fooling. If you want to escape those men 
you must not lose an instant.” 

He went down-stairs and Camillac followed him like a 
beaten hound. 

You’ve got the policemen out of the way,” said the 
colonel, winking at Mrs. Jaker. That was clever of 
you. And now come and show us the way to this barn.” 

He put the young man’s arm through his and led him 
out into the garden. Camillac was in a pitiable state of 
weakness and could not have gone three steps without 
help. But the fresh morning air revived him a little, and 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


129 


he was able to get over the ground, supported and helped 
by the colonel. The barn was in sight, across a couple of 
fields. They skirted these open fields, keeping close to 
the hedgerows, where there was a hard, well-beaten track, 
and where their feet would leave no perceptible traces. 
The barn was never locked. It was a large, airy build- 
ing — old, but substantially built, with great heavy rafters 
and patches of open sky showing here and there through 
the great dark roof. 

“ Why, this is Noah’s ark,” cried Camillac. 

‘‘ What a rotten old hulk. We shall be wrecked in the 
first storm.” 

There was some straw in a corner. Camillac flung him- 
self down upon it. The colonel took off his heavy ulster 
and spread it over the shivering wretch. 

‘‘ Get through the day quietly here; sleep, if you can, 
and ril come to fetch you at dusk,” said the colonel. 

I can’t get on without brandy,” answered the other. 

You can bring me a bottle,” he said to Mrs. Jaker, 
handing her a sovereign from his waiscoat pocket. 

The young man’s possession of this gold puzzled the 
colonel, but he concluded that the Jakers had changed 
one of his notes for him, albeit Mrs. Jaker had not men- 
tion that fact in her confession just now. 

“ She shall take care of you,” said the colonel, but re- 
member you are in constant peril of being arrested as long 
as you remain in the neighborhood of Darnel Park. So 
you had better keep as quiet as you possibly can till I 
come to fetch you.” And with this injunction Colonel 
Stukely left him. 

There was no lock to tlie barn door, and he found a 
primitive and ingenious way of fastening it outside by 
means of a bit of wood and a strip of iron, which he 
twisted under and over the latch, so as to render it a 
(litficult matter for Mr. Camillac to get out. As they 
went back to the lane the colonel gave Mrs. Jaker her in- 
structions. 

You are to take him no raw brandy,” he said, un- 
less you want to hasten his death. You must get a 
couple of pounds of beef and make some beef tea, as 
strong as you know how to make it. You can put half a 
wineglass of brandy in a breakfast cup of beef tea*, and try 
to get him to dpiik that. He is in a terribly low state 


130 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


and will die from exhaustion unless he takes some kind of 
nourishment.” 

The colonel could not help thinking within himself that 
it would be a very good thing for Grace and everybody 
else if this young adventurer were to die; but as an hon- 
est, God-fearing man, Weldon Sfcukely knew that it was 
his duty to try and save liim. He walked home quickly, 
not much the worse for the sacrifice of his ulster, though 
it was a sharp October morning. He entered the hall 
with the air of a man who had been for a stroll in the 
gardens just as the eight-day clock was striking nine. 

No gong sounded for meals in this time of trouble. All 
noisesJn the house were hushed, save the musical chime 
of the clocks. 

Dora Darnel was coming down-stairs with her key bas- 
ket on her arm like a jailer. 

What is the last report?” asked the colonel, when he 
had wished her good-morning. 

The night nurse says there is an improvement, but T 
am always afraid to trust these people,” added Dora, as if 
all hirelings were vipers. ‘‘ However, Mr. Friedricson 
was to be here to-day, and we shall get the truth from 
him.” 

Has Penwern started on his mission yet?” asked the 
colonel, trying to seem careless. 

^‘He went out at eight this morning.” 

Good,” thought the colonel; must be ten before 
he can be at Mrs. Taker’s with the warrant.” 

The famous London surgeon was to be at Darnel at 
eleven that day, and was to extract the bullet, if he saw 
his way to performing that operation safely. Lady Dar- 
nel knew that this day was to be one of crisis in her hus- 
band’s fate. Before the day was over she would know, 
perhaps, whether he was to be spared or lost to her; 
whether joy or despair was to be her portion. She waited 
the issue in a silent agony. She would not leave her room 
except to creep into the corridor and crouch listening on 
the ground outside her husband’s door. She would see 
no one except nurses and doctor. 

The nurse’s favorable account of last night was the first 
gleam of hope. 

You think he will get better now?” she said, clasping 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 131 

the woman’s hand. ‘^You believe that we shall ^ave 
him?” 

“ I couldn’t undertake to say so much as that, my 
lady, but Sir Allan certainly had a much quieter niglil,” 
the woman answered calmly. 

When Mr. Friedricson and the local doctor came up- 
stairs they found Lady Darnel standing in the corridor, 
neatly dressed in iier gray cloth gown and linen collar, 
beautiful, calm as a statue; but there was a strained look 
about her eyes and forehead, a restlessness in the muscles 
of the mouth which told the great surgeon how her nerves 
were racked, her mind distracted by fear. 

The two medical men were closeted in the sick-room 
for more than an hour. Lady Darnel and Grace and Dora 
waiting in the corridor all the time. They stood in a lit- 
tle group at the further end of the corridor, not daring to 
be near the sick-room lest they should be in the way at 
some critical moment. Both the nurses were in attend- 
ance. Everything had been prepared for the operation. 
There was no rushing in and out, there were no sudden 
unforeseen requirements, no confusion. There was only 
intense and agonizing anxiety for those who watched and 
listened without. 

At last the door opened. Lady Darnel rushed toward 
it, white as death. She met the famous surgeon, a man 
of tall, commanding figure, a man who looked a tower of 
strength in the hour of calamity. Her lips moved as she 
looked up at him appealingly, but no^sound came from 
them. 

Do not agitate yourself, my dear Lady Darnel; every- 
thing has gone most favorably. We have extracted the 
bullet. There is every reason for hopefulness.” 

Praise be to God!” she cried fervently. May I go 
to my husband? May I stay with him and help them to 
nurse him?” 

‘‘Not yet, Lady Darnel. It is more than ever neces- 
sary that he should be kept quiet.” 

“ But I am pining to see him. It has been such a weary 
time. I should be so quiet. I believe he would be hap- 
pier if I were there. Has he not asked for me?” 

“ He is hardly conscious at present. The fever is much 
abated, the delirium much milder, but he is not in his 


132 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


right senses yet. When he is he will be sure to ask for 
you.” 

Unless he is strangely changed,” said Clare, with a 
touch of bitterness. 

She knew not what trouble might wait for her in the 
future, even when her dear one was snatched from the 
jaws of death. 

He must be kept very quiet; he must see no one ex- 
cept his nurses for the next few days. We have every 
reason to believe that all will go well.” 

‘‘Every reason,” murmured the local authority. 

“But in such a critical case there is no such thing as 
certainty. The uttermost care will be required,” said Mr. 
Friedricson. 

Til is was all. But, oh, how much it was to be able to 
hope! 

After breakfast the colonel had an interview with his 
valet, and between them they made out a plan for the dis- 
posal of Victor de Oamillac. The valet had an old mother 
— he spoke of her as an accident in his life — who lived in 
a pretty little street off Islington Green, and who let lodg- 
ings to single gentlemen. There had been a dearth of 
single gentlemen lately, or rather the supply had all been 
absorbed by the musical families, who had tennis lawns 
and bath-rooms and agreeable daughters, and who eked 
out Somerset House incomes by partial- boarding single 
gentlemen; so that the valet’s old mother had to bemoan 
the emptiness of her rooms. 

“ She cooks for them and does for them better than 
they can be done by in your shabby genteel musical fami- 
lies,” said the valet; “ but they’re all alike, taken by a 
bit of show — a few flowers and fal-lals about the rooms, 
and a young lady to play the piano to them.” 

It was settled that Nicolls, the valet, should take Ca- 
millac to his mother’s house, hire a nurse for him, call in a 
doctor and put him in a fair way of recovery. 

The colonel hadjiis own ideas about getting the young 
man out of England so soon as he should be well enough 
to be put on board ship; but there was no occasion to dis- 
cuss those ideas with Hicolls, 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


133 


CHAPTER XIII. 

^‘LOVE, see thy LOYER humbled at thy FEET.” 

The luncheon at Darnel Park that day was more cheerful 
than it had been since the catastrophe of nearly a week ago. 
For the first time since that awful night the household had 
been bidden to hope, and hope filled the hearts of all, 
high and low. The countenance of old Purdew, the but- 
ler, beamed with gladness as he poured out Colonel 
Stukely’s glass of Manzanilla, and gave his sweeping pro- 
fessional glance round the luncheon table to see that all 
things were correct before he retired to his own substan- 
tial meal in the housekeeper’s room. Even Miss Darnel 
was amiable; and poor Grace was radiant, despite those 
secret griefs which gnawed at her breast. 

^'I can bear anything,” she said to herself, ^Mf my 
father recovers.” 

She was dying for another talk with the colonel. She 
wanted to hear what news the detective had brought last 
night, and if any fresh circumstances had been brought to 
light bearing upon that horrible suspicion about Victor de 
Camillac. . There had been as yet no opportunity for any 
confidential talk with her friend. He had been in his own 
room all the morning, and just as luncheon was over and 
she was hoping to get a little walk on the terrace with her 
godfather, the butler announced Mr. Colchester, and at 
this announcement Grace flew upstairs to her sanctum, 
with as scared an aspect as if the man had said that small- 
pox or scarlet fever was in the drawing-room. 

Dora, always ready to do the honors of her brother’s 
house, sailed off to receive the lord of the manor; while 
the colonel went to the stables to give an order for the 
dog-cart. He would drive himself, he told the chief 
coachman, taking only Nicolls with him. The cart was 
to be ready for him at a quarter to six. He was going to 
Scadleigh station to meet a friend who would arrive by 
the seven o’clock train. The colonel’s position as Sir 
Allan’s oldest friend gave him a wide authority in the 
gtables, and nobody presumed to question his orders. 


134 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


You’d better take Dandy, sir,” said the coachman. 
^‘He’s a good goer, and he don’t mind trains.” 

Dora found Mr. Colchester in very low spirits. He was 
cheered by the good news about Sir Allan, but even that 
could not remove the cloud of gloom which hung around 
him as a garment. 

‘^People are sod — d ill-natured! I beg your pardon. 
Miss Darnel, only I have really no patience. They have 
been saying such things about this business, making a 
mystery of it, insinuating that it has something to do 
with Lady Darnel’s past history.” 

‘‘Indeed,” said Dora, eagerly. 

She had seen a few of her own particular friends since 
the catastrophe, spinsters of her own standing, or elderly 
young ladies strong in tennis and piety, and to these she 
had unfolded her doubts, vaguely, mysteriously, alleging 
no evil, but hinting at a great deal. And now, the bread 
she had scattered upon the waters was coming back to her 
tenfold. She was not deliberately malicious, she did not 
even know, in the depths of her own conscience, that she 
was acting cruelly and unfairly to Lady Darnel. She 
fancied herself a model of truth, justice, magnanimity. 
She told herself that in all things she was loyal and de- 
voted to her brother. When she saw him cheated and 
imposed upon, it was her duty to defend him, to watch 
for him, to be eyes and ears for him whom a wild infatua- 
tion had made blind and deaf. 

A parcel of tabbies,” exclaimed the young squire, un- 
conscious that he was alluding to Dora’s chosen friends, 
the select and superior elements in county society, the 
handful of corn amid the chaff. “I dropped in at Sco- 
ville’s yesterday” (Major Scoville was a mighty hunter); 
“and there were a pack of women at tea, and they all set 
on to gabble about Sir Allan’s danger; he was going to die; 
they were all cocksure of that, a set of ghouls, and then 
they began to wonder and to speculate. How odd it all 
was, they had never liked Lady Darnel. They admitted 
that she was handsome, or had been handsome, but they 
had never been able to bring themselves to believe in her, 
though they had tried to do so for Sir Allan’s sake. As 
if Sir Allan could care a hang what they believed.” 

“ He has cared,” said Dora, solemnlv; “ all men are 
sensitive on these points. Why, in France, half the duels 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


135 


one reads about are fonght for no stronger reason. I told 
you the other day that my brother has suffered acutely 
from the consequences of his most unhappy marriage. 
Was there anything more said?” 

A good deal. They began to talk about some man — 
a young man — dressed no better than a tramp, but very 
good-looking, and with r.he air of a broken down gentle- 
man, who was seen near Darnel Park late in the afternoon 
before the night on wliich Sir Allan wag shot. It seems 
that Miss Mowbray and her sister Jane — you know Jane?” 

As well as if she were my sister. She is one of the most 
truthful girls I know.” 

‘‘I shouldn’t call her a girl,” said Edward, bluntly, 
‘‘ anyhow, she’s quite old enough to know what she’s talk- 
ing about. She and Miss Mowbray had been out to tea. 
It is their normal erudition, don’t you know, to be drink- 
ing tea in somebody’s house every afternoon; and they 
were going home in the dusk, and they were a little 
frightened, timid young flutterers; so that when a young 
man jumped up from the bank where he had been lying, 
they were ready to drop. They expected to be robbed of 
their watches at the least; but he only asked them the way 
to Darnel Park. He spoke like a gentleman, and he looked 
like a gentleman, in spite of his shabby clothes. He was 
not dressed any better than a tramp, they say.” 

^‘That may have been a disguise,” said Dora, suspi- 
ciously. 

Precisely! The same idea occurred to me,” said Mr. 
Colchester, also suspicious. That candid nature of his 
was getting perverted by jealousy. He was puzzled by 
the inconsistency of Grace’s conduct. She had almost 
admitted that she loved him, and then had declared that 
she would never be his wife. There must be some reason 
for such a contradiction; and this shabby, good-looking 
young man lurking mysteriously in the neighborhood of 
Darnel Park might be the reason. 

Did the Mowbrays see any more of this man?” asked 
Dora. 

He followed them a little way and questioned them 
curiously about Darnel Park: Were the family at home, 
Sir Allan, Lady Darnel, Miss Darnel. He seemed to 
know all about them, had their names quite pat. The 
Mowbrays answered him civilly, out of sheer funk. They 


136 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


thought he was a genteel beggar, who might change his 
mind any moment and go for their watches. They hur- 
ried home as fast as they could directly they got clear of 
him. Now this fact, taken in conjunction with the night 
attack upon Sir Allan, is certainly rather startling.” 

It is more than startling,” exclaimed Dora. I have 
felt convinced from the very first that it was no common 
robber who entered the house that night.” 

And then she spoke of the footsteps which she had 
heard on the terrace between ten and eleven — the slow, 
stealthy tread, like that of a man pacing up and down 
waiting and watching for his opportunity. No doubt 
that was the footfall of this very man. 

Who could he be, do you think?” asked Edward. 

Some one connected with Lady DarneFs past life,” 
answered Dora decisively. 

“Some secret lover of Grace’s,” thought Edward. . 

“ His shabby clothes were only a disguise, you may de- 
pend,” said Dora. 

“ But the fact that the money was taken seems to point 
to a burglar,” added Edward, dubiously. 

“ The money may have been taken only as a blind — not 
taken at all, perhaps, only hidden somewhere about the 
room, where it will be found later on. The man was a 
gentleman, he went to that room to see Lady Darnel, and 
on finding himself surprised by my poor brother he shot 
him in order to escape recognition. Who knows what 
hatred and jealousy he may have felt against poor Allan, 
if he was, as I fear, a cast-off sweetheart of Lady Darnel’s 
— jilted, perhaps, in order that she might marry my de- 
luded brother.” 

Dora Darnel put her little story together so neatly, had 
such a glib assured air in the telling of it, that Edward 
Colchester was almost inclined to believe her. And yet 
there were difficulties. 

“ This person was described as a young man,” he said, 

and Lady Darnel is not a young woman. A former ad- 
mirer of hers would hardly be a youth.” 

“ Those Mowbray girls were too frightened to be very 
good judges as to a stranger’s age, and again some women 
have such perverse ideas. To my mind Lady Darnel is 
just the kind of person to have encouraged a young ad- 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 137 

mirer and then to have thrown him over directly she saw 
a chance of a good establishment.” 

You have not a high opinion of Lady Darnel,” said 
Mr. Colchester, shocked at the undisguised venom of her 
tone. 

“ lias the county a high opinion of her? Have you a 
high opinion of her?” asked Dora, contemptuously. * 

I liave always liked her immensely; but, of course, I 
would ratlier think ill of her than of Grace.” 

Of Grace!” screamed Miss Darnel. What has 
Grace to do with it? Surely you can not suppose this man 
to be an admirer of my niece.” 

She pronounced the possessive pronoun as if the mere fact 
of relationship to her made wrong doing of any kind im- 
possible. 

“ I — I — have been inclined to fear that he might have 
come here to see Grace,” faltered the squire, blushing 
vehemently. 

To see Grace! Impossible! It was in Lady Darnel’s 
room that he was found. All Lady Darnel’s conduct 
since that dreadful night has indicated a mystery. Never 
was guilt more plainly expressed than by that wretched 
woman’s words and manner. Why, she started up in her 
sleep the next morning screaming out that it was her 
fault, it was she who had murdered lier husband. And 
that idiotic detective from London liad chosen to start 
upon an entirely false scent. He has taken it into his 
head that Jaker stole the money, just because Jaker hap- 
pened to change a twenty-pound note in the village two 
days ago.” 

‘‘Did he?” exclaimed Edward. “That looks queer. 
Jaker is bad enough for anything.” 

“ But Jaker would have no motive for breaking into 
Lady Darnel’s morning-room. He could not kno)iV that 
the money was there. There was nothing to take him to 
that particular room.” 

“ Nothing except the fact that it is the most accessible 
room in the house,” said Edward. “ I should like to see 
Grace, if she would let me. She will not be quite so un- 
happy now that Sir Allan is in a more hopeful condition. 
Ah, there she is in the garden. I’ll go out to her. If I 
asked to see her I dare say she would say no.” 

He took a hurried adieu and was off to the garden be- 


138 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


fore Miss Darnel could say another word. He had caught 
sight of a tall slim figure in the distance, rich brown hair 
blown by the autumn wind. Grace was walking up and 
down by the shrubbery, just where she had told him that 
his case was hopeless. She had flown up to her room to 
avoid him, as if ho was a pestilence; and yet here she was 
walking where he could hardly fail to see her as he left the 
house. It was just one of those inconsistent things which 
young ladies of Grace Darnel’s age are prone to do. Ed- 
ward Colchester ran across the lawn and joined her. He 
ran his fastest, half afraid she would vanish amidst the 
wilderness of shrubs before he could reach her. She gave 
him her hand frankly, and he took it, but with a certain 
coldness which startled her. His bosom was rent with 
horrible suspicions about that stranger whom the Mow- 
brays had described to him. Till those doubts should be 
satisfied, the master passion jealousy took the place of the 
master passion love. He made some commonplace re- 
mark about the improvement in her father’s health, and 
then began abruptly to talk of the stranger who had met 
the Mowbrays. Grace’s sudden look of fear at his very 
first allusion to this man told him that the man was no 
stranger to her. His doubts wero too well founded. The 
man had come to Darnel to see Grace. He must needs 
be some disreputable suitor whose acquaintance she had 
formed away from home, and who came by stealth to 
prosecute his suit or to complete his conquest. 

^‘Your aunt thinks that this man came to see Lady 
Darnel,” he said. 

To see Lady Darnel. How wicked, how unjust! So 
like my aunt,” cried Grace indignantly. 

For what other purpose could he have come — except 
as a thief?” 

He is not a thief,” said Grace, beginning with a rush, 
as if about to say a great deal and then becoming sud- 
denly silent. 

For a moment she had been inclined to say, He came 
to see me.” She had been tempted to tell Edward Col- 
chester the story of her entanglement, the dishonoring 
chain which she had forged for herself. Yet, why should 
she so lower herself in his eyes? She had refused to be 
his wife. Surely that was enough. She had sacrificed 
her own happiness in order to be true to that fatal promise. 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 130 

It was not for Ii.er to apologize for her folly to a rejected 
lover. To him she owed no allegiance. 

“ He is not a thief?’’ eclioed. Edward. ^‘How prompt 
you are to defend him. You know this person then?” 

‘‘I am not going to be catechised by you,” she retorted 
angrily. 

‘‘I would not presume to catechise. Only you must 
admit that under certain circumstances a man has a right 
to be curious. Your father, my father’s dearest friend, a 
man I honor and love, has been half murdered. lam told 
of a young man who has been seen lurking about the park 
— ii^ all probability the criminal — and when I mention 
the fact you take up the cudgels in this man’s defense. 
Wiiat can I think, Grace, except that there is a mystery 
here in which you are in some way concerned?” 

You can think what you please,” she answered coldly. 

I do not consider myself accountable to you for my con- 
duct. And now I must wish you good afternoon. I am 
going indoors to hear the latest news of my father.” 

A quarter of an hour ago she was longing to see him — 
she had purposely put herself in the way of seeing him; 
and now she left him in anger, left him with his heart 
gnawed by jealousy. 

In the hall Grace met Purdew, the butler, and from him 
she learned that Colonel Stukely had gone out walking. 
This was a blow, as she was dying for a talk with her 
friend and counsellor. Lacking this comfort she shut 
hei'self in her own room, restless, unhappy and full of 
fear. 

The day wore on. Lady Darnel spent the afternoon in 
prayer and thanksgiving. Each new report from the sick- 
room was more cheering than the last. Sir Allan was 
sleeping ])eacefully — the weary brain so long tormented by 
the wild visions of fever was now at rest. The tide had 
turned. Soon, very soon, Clare Darnel might hope to 
take her place beside the sick-bed, to see the beloved face 
smile a fond welcome to the loving wih?. 

Grace was on the watch all that afternoon for Colonel 
Stukely’s return; but to her surprise slie saw him driving 
away from the house at a few minutes before six, his valet 
sitting at the back of the cart. This seemed a very mys- 
terious proceeding. The dog-cart had not been brought 
to the hall door. The colonel had got into it in the stable 


140 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


yard, and drove rapidly round to the avenue and away> 
like a man who did not wish his departure to be observed. 
She spent an hour and a half of supreme anxiety, and at 
lialf past seven a little penciled note was brought her, in 
her godfather’s well-kno\^u hand: 

“lam obliged to jfo to London, dear Gracie, in your interest. 
-Don’t be anxious. All will be well. It may be some days — per* 
haps more than a week — before I can go back to Darnel. Your 
■'Scampish friend is alive, but in a very sad condition, I shall do all 
I can for him, and I shall not lose sight of him till I have obtained 
your release. So you may consider yourself free to be kind to poor 
Colchester. The man is not a Frenchman. You have, therefore, 
been grossly deceived by him, and that fact alone should cancel any 
promise you may have given him. Ever your faithful friend. 

“W. S.’* 

/^Not a Frenchman,” thought Grace indignantly. 

What an impostor! And he spoke French so beautifully 
and wrote such lovely letters. I dare say they are full of 
faults in grammar which my ignorance could not detect.” 

The colonel said not a word as to whether Camillac was 
or was not implicated in the crime at Darnel. It was 
cruel of him to leave her unenlightened, Grace thought. 

The dog-cart had been driven back to Darnel by a man 
from the station hotel at Scadleigh. The colonel sent a 
second little note to Dora, apologizing for his abrupt de- 
parture, and asking her to telegraph a daily bulletin to 
him at the club, where he would breakfast every morning. 
He had a pied d terre in the shape of a second floor in 
the neighborhood of St. James Street. 

Three days had gone by since the colonel’s departure, 
and the progress of the invalid had been satisfactory 
throughout that time. Pulse and temperature had grad- 
ually fallen almost to a normal condition, the wound was 
going on favorably, the patient had tranquil nights, and 
was able to take a little more nourishment than at the be- 
ginning of his illness. And thus there came an hour 
when the family doctor felt that he could no longer forbid 
the presence of wife and kindred in the sick-room. 

‘‘ We must do nothing rash,” he said to Clare, in the 
presence of Grace and Dora. You may spend an hour 
or so with Sir Allan to-day, Lady Darnel, and to-morrow, 
if all go well, Miss Darnel and Miss Grace might see him< 
But it had better be one at a time.” 


CUT BY THE COUKTY. 


141 


It is very odd if I can not see my brother as soon as 
he is fit to see any one,” observed Dora, pallid with anger, 
yet speaking with her accustomed suavity. ‘‘We have 
been companions for a great many years. I never had a 
secret from him or he from me.” 

“That fact, interesting as it is, would not make your 
presence less agitating, my dear Miss Darnel,” said the 
doctor. “ Lady Darnel has the first claim — a wife’s claims 
are paramount, you know — and you and Miss Grace must 
wait for to-morrow. And now. Lady Darnel, remember 
what I have told you about our patient. Not one agitat- 
ing word — no show of emotion on your part. He is too 
weak to bear anything of that kind.” 

“ I will be careful,” said Clare, clasping his hand. 

She was very pale, her lips quivering with nervous ex- 
citement, and yet joy beamed in her eyes. The moment 
so ardently longed for had come at last. The bolted door 
by which she had watched and listened was no longer to 
be an impassable barrier between her and her beloved. 

“ You can go to him now,” said the doctor, “ but re- 
member, you are to stay only an hour — one hour by the 
clock. It is just twelve. You will leave him at one.” 

“ And is that to be all? Am I not to see him again all 
day?” 

“ I shall be here in the evening, and if I find there has 
been no mischief done — if Sir Allan is quite calm and 
comfortable, I may — well, I will be very indulgent and 
let you see him again for ten minutes.” 

“I will be very obedient,” said Lady Darnel, opening 
the door as she spoke. 

She went softly into the room — the spacious, old-fash- 
ioned bed-chamber, which looked larger in the semi-dark- 
npss of half-drawn window-curtains and lowered blinds. 
It was a noble room furnished with the artistic cabinet- 
work of the Jacobean era — old walnut-wood wardrobes 
and secretaires, old cherry-wood chairs with exquisitely 
carved backs. The only modern piece of furniture was 
tlielow, broad brass bedstead without a vestige of drapery. 
The wide, deep hearth, with its old blue and white tiles 
and basket grate and high mantel-piece, was a study for a 
painter oL still-life. The window curtains were of old 
brocade, red and tawny. The room had a look of somber 
old-world luxury, very pleasant to the eye. 


142 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


The nurse rose and slipped very quietly away to the ad- 
joining dressing-room as Lady Darnel approached the bed. 
Sir Allan was lying witli the firelight shining on his face. 
Oh, what a changed countenance — shrunken, pallid, as 
with the lines of death. For the first time Clare under- 
stood how near he had been to death. It was almost as if 
she were looking upon a face she had never seen before. 
The eyes — those dear eyes that used to gaze upon her with 
such love — looked at her now with a strange, dim, far- 
away expression. 

Shocked, horrified by the extent of the change, so much 
greater than she had expected, Clare Darnel sunk into a 
chair by the bedside, waiting, hoping for some little word 
of greeting from those pale lips; but no such word came. 
Her husband lifted his eyes to her face and looked at her 
gravely, mournfully. His wasted, half-trans|mreiit hand 
lay on the silken coverlet. She bent and kissed it; but 
he drew it away the next moment with a quick, nervous 
gesture, as if the touch of her lips offended him. 

Slie set a watch upon herself, remembering the doctor’s 
injunctions. 

My beloved,” she murmured softly, ^Mt is such ‘a 
happiness to me to see you once again — to be allowed to 
sit by your bedside for a little while.” 

There were tears in her voice. The shock of his altered 
appearance — his strange manner — were alike agitating to 
her*; and she had to be so careful lest her agitation should 
communicate itself to him. She waited with her heart 
beating vehemently — waited for some word of loving wel- 
come. In vain. 

You are much better, Allan, Mr. Danvers tells me. 
You will soon be among us again.” 

Mr. Danvers is vastly hopeful.” 

JBow weak and faint his voice sounded; how strangely 
cold his tone. 

The house is so dreary without you,” she said trem- 
ulously, trying to command herself, not for an instant 
forgetting the doctor’s warning. I have not been down- 
stairs since — that awful night.” 

Do you think it was necessary to carry on the comedy 
so long?” he said, with a scathing sneer. But I forgot; 
you are such a skillful actress that the deception would 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


143 


cost yon no effort. Yon, who have deceived me so long, 
would find no difficnlty in hoodwinking ‘the outside 
world.’’ 

Allan !” she exclaimed, breathlessly. 

AVas this delirium? His words were measured, deliber- 
ate, cool as the speech of a judge who calmly discusses 
the details of crime and wrong-doing. She could not be- 
lieve that his mind was wandering. The doctor had told 
her that fever and delirium were past. The patient’s ex- 
treme weakness was now the only peril, and that weak- 
ness made any emotion dangerous. If some dark cloud 
of suspicion had obscured her husband’s mind, if love had 
been changed into loathing she dared not question him, 
she dared not strive to set herself right. She must wait 
and suffer in patience. 

Silently, prayerfully, Clara Darnel sat by her husband’s 
sick-bed and listened to the ticking of the clock, to the 
falling of the wood ashes from the old basket grate. She 
could pray for her beloved; yes, that was all she could do 
in this hour of severance — severance, albeit she was sit- 
ting by his side. She could pray and put her trust in 
God. She could not believe that any estrangement be- 
tween herself and her husband could last. Life had been 
made very bitter to her in the days of her first marriage 
— a long period of pain and anxiety, growing from bad to 
worse, till it culminated in the tragedy at Mallow Bar- 
racks. And there had followed further trouble about her 
son. And then, after she had done with hope, after she 
had told herself that joy and gladness were not for her, 
there had come the awakening of a new love, the begin- 
ning of a new life, days of exceeding sweetness. AVas that 
bright time all over now, she wondered, and was s.he to 
go back into the darkness and pain and desolation? No, 
slie could not believe that fate would be so cruel, that she 
was to be ever the victim of other peoT)le’s sins — the 
scape- goat to suffer for the folly and crime of her belong- 
ings. No, all would be well again between herself and 
her beloved when once she could talk to him freely. He 
would not revenge upon her the wrong-doing of her son, 
although it had gone near to cost him his life. She knew 
Allan Darnel’s generous heart too well to believe that. 
But for the time being there was a gulf which she dared 
not attempt to cross. AVhatever ho might suspect, what- 


144 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


ever evil he might think of her, she could not set herself 
right yet awhile. 

So she sat with folded hands, meekljr, quiet as the figure 
of a saint in a cathedral niche, praying for him whose 
tlioughts had wronged her, praying for the restoration of 
the confidence and the bliss of old, when he and she had 
been in all things of one mind. And so the moments 
stole gently by till the hour was done, and as the clock 
struck she rose to leave the room. 

^‘1 must go now, Allan,’’ said she softly. ^‘Mr. Dan- 
vers only allowed me one hour. Can I get you anything, 
or do anything for you before I go? It would be such a 
pleasure to me to do you some small service.” 

‘‘Thanks, you are very kinB. No, there is nothing.” 

He spoke courteously, but as coldly as if he were ad- 
dressing a stranger. 

“ Jti revoir, x\llan, I may come again to look at you 
in the evening, perhaps.” 

lie did not forbid her to return. He let her depart in 
silence. 

He looked after her with sad, reproachful eyes till she 
was gone, and then turned his head upon the pillow and 
groaned aloud. Yes, he loved her still. She was as dear 
to him as she had ever been; she whom he believed to be 
the falsest and vilest among women; she who had admit- 
ted a lover beneath her husband’s roof at midnight — a 
desperado who, seeing his mistress’s good name at stake, 
had tried to murder the husband in order to save the wife. 

Yes, he recalled in this bitter hour, as he had recalled 
again and again since the awakening from the long agony 
of delirium, he recalled once again the memory of that 
hideous night. He remembered how in his sleep, the 
heavy sleep of fatigue, he had vaguely heard the murmur 
of two voioes in the adjoining room, his Avife’s voice and 
another; how, even in sleep, he had wondered at those 
voices, wondered that his wife should be talking; how, 
struggling half-consciously to rouse himself, he had at 
last awakened to hear his wife speaking and a man’s voice 
replying. Then came silence, and the sudden shutting of 
a door. He had risen hurriedly, put on his dressing- 
jacket and opened the door of the morning-room. Op the 
very threshold he stopped, seeing a man standing by the 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 145 

table— a man whose dark, handsome face impressed itself 
upon him in that one instant. 

He could recall those dark, flashing eyes, the hectic 
flush upon hollow cheeks, the haughty carriage of the 
head; but he could remember no more. He could not 
have told the man’s age or the clothes he wore. The 
figure stood before him for a moment only, dark, tall, de- 
fiant; then there was a flash, and all was dark. 

The face had haunted him in his delirium — the figure, 
with pistol pointed at .him, had pursued him through the • 
dark mazes of fever — and now, as he lay weak as a child, 
helpless, hopeless, broken-hearted, the dark, evil face was 
with him still, a haunting presence. 

And he believed that his wife was false to him, an arch 
deceiver from the very beginning of their acquaintance. 
He believed that she had put aside some dearer love for 
the sake of the position he was able to offer, and that all 
her subsequent life with him had been one elaborate 
comedy, so perfect in its dissimulation that he had lived 
in a fool’s paradise, deeming himself the happiest of men. 
Then came the preparations for the Italian tour. The 
lover had heard of this intended journey, had grown des- 
perate, perhaps, at the idea of a prolonged separation, and 
had insisted on an interview. Urged by an angry man, 
irrevocably lost by her conduct in the past, Clare Darnel 
had not stopped short at this last infamy. She had ad- 
mitted her lover at midnight, beneath her husband’s roof. 
And she came to him to-day in her calm, pale beauty, 
looking at him with eyes softened by unshed tears; she 
kissed him with her false lips; she acted her part of 
shameless hypocrisy to the lips, and did not shrink from 
the man whose heart .she had broken, whose life might 
have been sacrificed to her infamy. 

If I had died from that wound she would have married 
her old lover — married him with his hand red witfl my 
Ijlood — married, as Mary married Both well,” he tliought, 
‘‘ and the settlement which my doting folly secured to her 
would have made their future days easy. And this is the 
woman I have trusted — this is the woman whom I gave as a 
motlier to my innocent child.” 

The doctor came in the evening, and was not altogether 
satisfied with his patient’s appearance. 

You look worried/’ he said. I thought Lady 


146 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


Darners visifc would have cheered you. I expected to see 
a marked improvement. How has he taken his nourish- 
ment, nurse 

• ‘‘Not over well,” answered a prim little person in gray. 
“Sir Allan sent away the partridge scarcely touched, and 
he only took a spoonful of his custard,” 

“ No use trying to pamper you with dainties,” said the 
doctor, facetiously. “ We shall have to put you back 
upon Brand’s essence, if you don’t take care. Sir Allan 
must take a plate of invalid turtle for his supper, nurse, 
and you must give him a glass of dry sherry after it.” 

Sir Allan looked supremely indifferent to the supper 
question: 

“ If Lady Darnel has any idea of coming to see me this 
evening, you might tell her that she had better not. I do 
not think I am strong enough to see people yet,” he said, 
presently, while the doctor was feeling his pulse, watch in 
hand. 

“ I don’t think you are. You have quite disappointed 
me,” replied Mr. Danvers. 

Clare was waiting in the corridor when the doctor went 
out. 

“May I see him again to-night?” she asked, eagerly. 

“ Not to-night. He is very low — out of spirits — alto- 
gether depressed, a natural reaction after that violent 
fever. He must be left to himself for a few days more.” 

“And I am not to see him again for a few days!” ex- 
claimed Clare, dejectedly. 

“Come, dear Lady Darnel, I have let you have an hour 
with him. I have been very indulgent, too indulgent, I 
fear, for the result has not b'een favorable. In Sir Allan’s 
extreme weakness any excitement is bad. The thread has 
been strained to its thinnest point — an extra strain might 
snap it.” 

“ I will not go near him for a week,” said Clare, burst- 
ing into tears. “ He was not himself to-day. If you had 
not told me that the delirium was over — ” 

“Oh, his mind is clear enough. That is all right.” 

“Is it? Are you sure that he is in his right senses?” 

“ As sure as I can be of anything. He is perfectly calm 
and reasonable this evening. There is weakness and there 
is a profound depression. We can only hope for the 


OUT BY THE COUNTY. 147 

return of strengtli. His spirits will revive as he gets 
stronger. Good-night, Lady Darnel.’^ 

‘‘ Good-night/’ she answered, despondently, going back 
to lier room. 

She still kept herself secluded from the rest of tlie 
family. She could not bring herself to return to the common 
routine of daily life, its irksome forms and ceremonies, the 
hollow semblance of peace where there was no peace. In 
the seclusion of her own apartments she could abandon 
herself freely to the fever of her soul, could start up from 
her seat and walk up and down the room, could dull the 
agony of her heart by quick movement, by restless wander- 
ing in and out from the room to the corridor. 

“ Gan he doubt me, or does he guess the truth? Does 
he suspect that it was my son, my reprobate son, who has 
just missed being his murderer? If he did he is too 
generous to blame me for my son’s guilt, to accuse me of 
hypocrisy. Hypocrite, how and why.^” she asked herself, 
piteously. 

And then she remembered how, in telling Allan Darnel 
the history of her unhappy son, she had spoken of him 
as of one whom she believed to be dead. The knowledge 
that he still lived had come to her very soon after her 
marriage, and she had kept that knowledge from her hus-- 
band. 'That had been her greatest .sin. In her agony as 
fi mother, ashamed of the son who only appealed to her 
for money, whose vices and follies had been a continual 
drain upon her purse, she had shrunk from the acknowl- 
edgment of his existence. She had hoped always to keep 
liim at arm’s length, till at last repentance and reform 
should come, and he should 'begin a new life in a new 
Jjind, The new land had been tried, and had proved a 
failure as a means of reform; but he was young enough for 
the possibility of reformation, and the mother’s heart still 
clung to that hope. 

In this, and in this only, had she acted as a hypocrite. 

She had kept the knowledge of this burden to herself. 

She had kept the secret of this ever-present care, this 
perpetual dread of what the day might bring forth. This 
constant anxiety had preyed upon her, undermining her 
health, making her fitful and low-spirited; and lier anxious 
husband had told himself that it was her womanly pride ^ 


'148 CUT BY THE COUHTY. 

that suffered, that it was the coldness of his old friends 
which made her unhappy. 

‘‘ I will tell him all, by and by, when he is strong 
enough to bear an agitating conversation,’’ she said to 
herself, after long meditation upon her husband’s con- 
duct, and if I find that I have lost his love — well, I 
must bear the blow. It will not be the first of my trials, 
and it ought to be the last. If that loss do not kill me 
nothing can.” 

Second only to the horror of having forfeited her hus- 
band’s love was the agonizing thought of her son’s in- 
famy. A thief, and only by God’s mercy a little short of 
a murderer. He, her only son, had fired upon her hus- 
band with the intent to kill him. He had escaped from 
that house, carrying with him four hundred pounds of 
money. Where was he now? A felon, a marked man, 
pursued by detectives; perhaps before long to stand in 
the felon’s dock, and to answer for jiis crime. Then the 
whole story of his wretched existence, of his mother’s bit- 
ter burden, would be unfolded for the gratification of tlie 
curious; and all those old friends of Sir Allan’s who had 
held themselves aloof from his second wife would say. 

We did well to suspect this woman’s antecedents. The 
mother of such a son could not be a good woman.” 

Not once in her conversation with Grace had Lady 
Darnel hinted at her knowledge of the girl’s acquaintance 
with the adventurer who had called himself Victor de 
Oamillac. To do that would have been to reveal too 
much. She was determined to guard her step-daughter 
from any future dealings with lier son, should he ever 
again dare to present himself upon the scene. But it was 
her desire, if possible, to get him out of the country be- 
fore he was called upon to pay the forfeit of his crime. 
Miss Darnel’s promptitude in putting the case into the 
hands of the police made her position all the more diffi- 
cult. Her only hope was that Mr. Penwern, having got 
upon a false scent, would continue to go astray, and 
would devote himself to the pursuit of Jaker, while the 
real criminal was making liis escape. It was not to Dora 
Darnel that Clare owed her knowledge of Mr. Penwern’s 
movements. That lady went about with locked lips, the 
very incarnation of secrecy. But in a country house 
secrets of this kind pervade the air. Mr. Penwern had 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


149 


been made very comfortable in the housekeeper’s room; 
and, though he had been discreet, he had not altogether 
been silent. Lady Darnel’s maid told her that Jaker was 
known to have stolen the money; and that Mr. Penwern 
wanted to stop him from getting off to America. The 
idea of his guilt had been confirmed by the disappearance 
of Mrs. Jaker, whose cottage had been found empty one 
morning, she and her brood of brats having slipped away 
under cover of the darkness, almost as quietly as Robin 
Goodfellow and his goblin crew. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

‘^THEN BE WE, EACH AND ALL, FORGIVEN.” 

A WEEK went by, a week of misery for every one at 
Darnel Park, and for at least one person outside the gates; 
a week which had brought no new tidings of any kind. 
Mr. Penwern had gone back to Scotland Yard a confessed 
failure, and Dora was scathing in her 'contempt for the 
detective force. He had eaten and drunk; he had been 
handsomely paid for his services; he had gone upon 
expensive journeys to Liverpool and Plymouth and Cork; 
but he had failed to arrest the footsteps of Jaker, or even 
to discover what white wings had wafted Jaker and his 
fortunes westward. Among the crowd of emigrants for 
that western paradise, the poacher, a marked man in the 
neighborhood of Darnel, had been but an insignificant 
unit, and he had left no trace behind him in the memory 
of dock laborers or quay-side loiterers. 

The note changed by Jaker at the village shop had been 
identified by Sir Allan’s bankers as one of the notes issued 
to him. This fact established Jaker’s guilt in the mind 
of the detective. But it did not satisfy Dora Darnel. 
From the first she had made up her mind that her sister- 
in-law was in somewise implicated in the guilt of that 
fatal night. She was not going lightly to surrender that 
belief. It was the fruition of her own evil thoughts, the 
culmination of her long-cherished dislike of her brother’s 
wife. She was not going to relinquish her own con- 
victions, the outcome of much intense thought, merely 


150 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


because the real criminal had been clever enough to pass 
some of his plunder to Jaker, no doubt with the express 
intention of putting justice on a false scent. 

While Miss Darnell clung to her own convictions Ed- 
ward Colchester was pursued by the thought of that 
handsomeand gentleman-like stranger, whom the Mowbray 
girls had seen lurking about Darnel. He took occasion to 
discuss the subject a second time with Miss Mowbray and 
her sister — during a chance meeting at somebody else’s 
house — and again he heard of the stranger’s shabby 
clothes and superior air, his anxiety to know who was 
staying at Darnel, and upon which side of the house Lady 
Darnell and Miss Darnell’s rooms were situated. 

‘‘Did he ask about both?” asked Edward, deeply in- 
terested. 

“Yes, about both. And we were so frightened that 
we answered him like silly sheep, without thinking how 
improper it all was,” answered Jane. 

“ Such questions could only be asked by a burglar, 
could tliey? And yet he had such a gentlemanly air, and 
he looked very ill, poor creature,” said Miss Mowbray. 

“ The whole thing is too mysterious,” said Mrs. Vin- 
cent, the lady of the house, who had called upon Dora 
Darnell that afternoon, and whose imagination had been 
fed with suggestions and innuendoes. “But then. Lady 
Darnel is such a very mysterious person.” 

“She is a charming woman,” protested Edward, who 
was not going to sacrifice Lady Darnel to these lady-like 
harjiies. 

He had always liked her and believed in lier, and he was 
prepared to stand by her now. It was Grace whom he 
suspected, Grace who had treated him so badly. 

“Charming, no doubt. She is very handsome and 
very elegant, and she has a certain style of her own whicli 
is very taking, even if it is not good style,” replied Mrs. 
Vincent with a judicial air, “but every one must admit 
that she is mysterious. There is a want of candor, a 
something underhand.” 

“Why should you accuse her of being underhanded,” 
exclaimed Edward. “ Did she ever tell you a lie: People 
are not obliged to go about in society advertising tlieir 
antecedents. Perhaps she was very poor in her first hus- 
band’s life-time, and doesn’t care to talk about the shifts 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


151 


she was put to. The world is so snobbish that people are 
ashamed of owning they were ever hard up. Or the man 
may have been a scamp; who knows?’^ 

‘‘No one knows anything,” said Miss Mowbray mali- 
ciously. “Lady Darnel has shown a peculiar talent for 
holding her tongue.” 

“ Then she is the most original of women,” retorted 
Edward, “ and I only wish the rest of her set. were as 
clever.” 

This was a glaring piece of injustice, since a few minutes 
ago he had been doing all in his power to make Jane and 
her sister talk about their encounter with the tramp out- 
side Darnel. But Edward Colchester had not been him- 
self for the last ten days. His heart was gnawed by 
jealousy, and this gnawing process is apt to have a very 
bad effect upon a man’s temper. 

:ic 4: 4; 4: 4; 

A week had gone by since that morning when Clare 
Darnel had entered her husband’s room, full of love and 
hope, to be received with such crushing coldness. She 
had not seen him since that hour. She had waited 
meekly till he should summon her to his bedside. She 
was ready to bear the punishment of her sin against him, 
that one sin of concealment, ready to acknowledge that 
she had erred in withholding her confidence from the 
husband and friend to whom she owed all her allegiance. 

During the week that was just ended. Sir Allan had 
made marked progress toward recovery. A powerful con- 
stitution and habits of exceptional temperance had made 
his restoration to health easy, when once the bullet had 
been successfully extracted. He had been gradually re- 
gaining strength of body and mind during that week of 
quiet and seclusion. He had seen his daughter once, his 
sister three times. Dora had urged her right to see him, 
and he had yielded to her wish, not without reluctance. 
She had sat with him for an hour on each occasion, and 
she had talked softly, in low and gentle accents, yet drop- 
pii>g such drops of venom as those lips of hers were wont 
to distill when her brother’s wife was the subject of ^con- 
versation. Whatever Sir Allan thought of her insinua- 
tions he had been inscrutable. 

And now the day had come when he felt himself equal 
to an interview with his wife — that interview which ho 


152 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


felt must needs be final. His house must no longer shelter 
a traitoress, his daughter must no longer call an infamous 
woman mother. It was to Grace, his only child, his 
darling of peaceful days gone by, that he turned in this 
hour of dark despair. Amidst the shipwreck of his hap- 
piness she was the straw to which he clung. And now, 
to-day, when he had to pronounce judgment upon his 
guilty wife he summoned Grace to stand at his side, to be, 
in some measure, judge between him and the woman they 
both had loved. Grace would incline to mercy. Grace 
would pity the sinner, even in the midst of indignation at 
the sin. 

It was the first day upon which Sir Allan had been well 
enough to sit up for an hour or two. He looked the pale 
ghost of his old self, as he sat by the fire, wrapped in 
a long brocaded dressing-gown, bordered with sable, as 
picturesque as the robe of a Venetian senator in tlie six- 
teenth century. The gown had been planned and chosen 
by Lady Darnel, and made in secret, as a birthday gift 
for her husband. He remembered that fact when his 
valet handed him the garment, and would have avoided 
putting it on — but his only other dressing-gown had been 
stained with blood on the fatal night. He could not re- 
ject the obnoxious robe without too plainly indicating his 
antipathy, and he did not want to make his wife’s dis- 
grace common talk in the household. 

He sent for his wife and daughter and they came to 
him, side by side. Grace flew to the hearth, where he 
sat in a spacious arm-chair. She flung herself upon her 
knees beside him and nestled her bright head in his lap. 

Oh, father, what delight to be with you,” she mur- 
mured. 

Clare stood a little way off, calm, erect, but very pale. 
If she stood before him thus as a criminal, conscious of 
that last worse crime of which a wife can be guilty, she 
was indeed the most audacious among women. But 
though her face expressed a proud tranquillity, and her 
. grave, sorrowful, reproachful even, looked at him 
unshrinkingly, she was content to stand aloof, as one who 
knew there was an impassable gulf between herself and 
him. So Allan Darnel thought in his agony as he looked 
at the wife he had loved. 

Had loved! Ig there ever an end to such a love as this? 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


153 


Did Lucius Junius Brutus cease to love his sons when, as 
their judge, he condemned them to death? 

Never had Allan Darnel loved vender pale, beautiful 
woman more intensely than beloved her now, in this su- 
preme hour of her renunciation. 

“ Grace, I have sent for you because I have that to sav 
to Lady Darnel which I wish you to hear,’' he began 
gravely. ‘‘ There are some fachers who would keep such 
a sorrow as mine forever secret from a daughter, who 
would hush up and gloss over facts, leave all things in 
darkness and mystery, a something to be wondered about 
for ever afterward; but I have chosen to act otherwise. 
You. are a woman, and it can do you no harm to know 
that there are wicked women in this world as well as good 
women. I give you my whole confidence, Grace, because 
you are wise as well as loving.” 

“ Father,” cried the girl, looking at him with horror, 
‘‘what are you going to say? Not ohe word against my 
mother.” 

“ Hush,” exclaimed Sir Allan, putting his hand u-pon 
her lips. “ You must never again call that woman by 
such a name. You look upon her to-day, I hope, for the 
last time. Lady Darnel and I are going to pare, Grace, 
forever. There is no need for me to enter upon the 
reasons for that parting. She knews what those reasons 
are as well as I. There need be no public scandal, no 
disgrace for her — whom we have both loved. Lady Dar- 
nel is comfortably provided for under her settlement. She 
will do well to go abroad, alleging any reason she may 
please, not dishonorable to me, for our separation. I 
would spare her all the pain I can, although her infamy 
well-nigh cost me my life — although her midnight visitor 
did his best to murder me.” 

“Father, father,” cried Grace, with a wild shriek of 
horror, “you are wrong — deluded — deceived — deceived by 
me, your wretched daughter. It was in the hope of seeing 
me that that man came to this house. He had been lurk- 
ing about all day. He wanted to get an interview with 
me — to claim my promise — perhaps to ask me for money, 
since he was brought so low.” 

“ Grace, what are you raving about? You are mad,” ex- 
claimed Sir Allan, looking from his daughter to his wife in 
sheer bewilderment. 


154 


CUT BY THE COUHTY. 


Clare had said not a 'word. She stood before him silent, 
imperturbable, waiting to hear his accusation in all its 
fullness. Slie wanted to hear him to the end — to learn 
the lowest depth to which she had sunk in his estimation 
before she uttered one word in her own defense. And 
now Grace had come to the rescue; Grace, t!ie generous 
and impulsive; and the whole story must needs be told. 

•‘No, father, dearest, I am not mad; but I have been 
foolish, blarnable, wicked even; for it was wicked to 
keep the secret of my folly from the best and kindest of 
fathers. 1 am deeply ashamed of myself. If that dread- 
ful wound liud been fatal I should have been the most 
miserable creature in this world. I could not have gone 
on living, knowing that my folly had been the cause of 
my father’s death.” 

And then briefly, bravely, without disguises or sophis- 
tications of any kind, Grace Darnel told the history of 
her engagement, told how she had seen her scampish lover 
upon the Chicksand Common when they were out cub- 
hunting in the morning, and how she had seen no more 
of him. 

“ You did not see him again at night, then?” ques- 
tioned her father. “How do you know that it was he 
whom 1 saw in the next room — the man who fired the 
shot?” 

“I do know it — as well as any one can know anything 
from circumstantial evidence, but it is a long story. 
Hark! there is a carriage,” cried Grace, rushing to the 
window. “It must be the colonel. I had a letter from 
him this morning saying he would try to be back to-dajr^. 
He knows everything. He can convince you that f am 
telling the truth.” 

“ He knows,” said Sir Allan. “ You trusted him, then, 
when you dared not trust your father?” 

“Because I was not one little bit afraid of bim, dear, 
indulgent, old thing,” cried Grace. “May he come up- 
stairs at once? I am dying to see him.” 

“Not yet, Grace; we must have this story out first. If 
— if I have wronged your step-mother as deeply as your 
words imply — ” 

“ Y^ou have wronged her, deeply, cruelly, outrageously. 
There never was a more devoted wife. I know how she 
has suffered all through your illness, poor thing, and she 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 155 

stands there like a statue, accused of crimes of which. I 
alone am guilty.” 

“ Clave,” cried Sir Allan, holding out his arms to his 
wife, trying to rise, but almost too weak to lift himself 
from the capacious depths of the low arrn-chair. 

“Clare, can you forgive me?” 

“Allan, my beloved husband.” 

She flew to his arms. On her knees, with her head 
upon his breast, she sobbed out the fullness of her heart. 

“No, Allan, no,” she gasped, when her passionate 
tears had exhausted themselves, “no, I am not without 
guilt. I, too, have been weak and cowardly. Like this 
poor girl here, I have had my secret. I have kept one 
Bluebeard chamber in my life locked from you, the best 
and most generous of men. Grace is mistaken. Her un- 
principled suitor, the unhappy young man who in Paris 
called himself Victor de Camiilac, came to this house on 
tliat dreadful night to see me, to obtain money from me, 
from me whose purse had been emptied for him, time 
after time, since my marriage. You must have often 
wondered wiiat I did with my money, Allan, how I con- 
trived to get rid of that handsome income which your love 
had settled on me. You know now. It was not spent on 
private charities as you fancied. It was not from motives 
of benevolence that I stinted myself of those luxuries 
women love. It was my worthless son wlio drained my 
purse and squandered your money in gambling clubs and 
on race-courses. 

“ Your son?” 

“Yes, my son, Stuart Mackenzie's son, who, God help 
him, has inherited all Stuart Mackenzie’s vices, including 
the capacity for murder. My son, who may before long be 
standing in the criminal dock tor be tried for the crime of 
that fatal night, and to bring disgrace upon you through 
your wretched wife. He was not drowned, as we thought, in 
the ^ Erl King.’ He wrote to me from San Francisco witliin 
two months of my marriage. He had seen the announce- 
ment in an English paper, and he congratulated me on 
my good fortune and my power to help him. From that 
time to this his letters have been one long series of de- 
mands. I have complied, weakly, hopelessly, ready to 
grant anything rather than to let you know my trouble^, 
rather than that you should feel ashamed of your wife’s 


156 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


son. He is mine, you know, my very Own, my flesh 
and blood. No dishonor can touch him that does not 
cast its shadow upon me. I could not bring myself to 
confess how low he has fallen. If I had told you any- 
thing I must have told you all. I preferred to keep my 
secret, and in this one matter to be a hypocrite.” 

‘‘Poor Clare, poor misguided Clare. As if I should 
have failed you, love. Why, I would have stood by you 
and help,ed you if you had been the mother of half a dozen 
scampish sons.” 

“Ah, you are so good! But I wanted to spare you all 
trouble and worry.” 

“And so worried yourself out of health and spirits. 
All wrong, Clare,” said Sir Allan gently. 

“ I tried, under these conditions, to do my duty to my 
wretched boy, tried to be his adviser and guide, to put 
him in an honorable way of life. I gave him the means 
of living as a gentleman; the leisure to cultivate the pro- 
fession of his choice. 1 refused no request he made me. 

I lent a willing ear to his promises of amendment. All 
in vain. He was a drunkard and a gambler — his vices 
were ingrained in him — a hideous hereditary taint — the 
leprosy of sin. When he stood before me that night, 
threadbare, down at heel, haggard, degraded, 1 knew that 
he had fallen to the lowest depth of moral and physical 
ruin. His shaking hands and restless manner told me too 
plainly that he was a sufferer from his father’s old dis- 
ease, the brandy-drinker’s fatal fever. He bad so suffered 
before, as I knew. He had hardly emerged from boyhood 
when. he was first attacked by that horrible complaint. I 
knew all this; but 1 did not know that he could be mad 
enough or wicked enough to attempt murder. He told 
me of his courtship of" Grace — admitted that he had 
passed himself off as a Frenchman, was daring enough to 
talk about claiming the fulfillment of her promise directly 
she came of age. He asked me for a large sum of money, 
which I refused; and, while I was absent from the room, 
he opened the Japanese cabinet where you had put the 
notes — he must have seen you from the balcony — and. was 
in the act of making off with them when you entered.” 

“I understand,” muttered Sir Allan. “It was the 
money then that made him desperate. I had forgotteu 
all about that money.” 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


157 


‘‘ Other people did not forget. Miss Darnel brought a 
detective from London, and he put the whole story to- 
gether.’’ 

Dora brought a detective here, and without my per- 
mission I” exclaimed Sir Allan. She brought the police 
into the house while I was lying unconscious here! That 
was rather a wide stretch of her authority as my sister.” 

We were all so anxious about you, dearest,” mur- 
mured Grace. I dare say it was Aunt Dora’s anxiety 
which made her send for the detective.” 

1 don’t think the whole of Scotland Yard could have 
done very much toward saving my life, Gracie. It would 
have been more sisterly of your aunt to have postponed 
her inquiries till I was able to sanction them.” 

She could not have guessed that the thief was my son 
and Grace’s suitor,” said Lady Darnel. ‘‘ Happily for 
us, the man from Scotland Yard was beguiled by a false 
scent, and my wretched son is still at liberty. God only 
knows where he is, and what we may next hear of him.” 

Nothing bad, I hope, mother,” said Grace, ‘‘ for the 
colonel has undertaken to look after him; and as I had a 
very cheery letter from the dear old man this morning, I 
have no doubt he has managed everything admirably. 
Would you mind his coming here now, father? I am 
dying to hear what he has done.” 

Yes, Grace, you can send for him now.” 

Grace went off *to deliver her own message, and Allan 
Darnel and his wife were alone for a little while. Alone, 
and side by side, full of trust in each other, just as they 
had been before the crime which for a little while had 
wrapped their lives in a black cloud. 

^‘Ah, Clare, what a besotted idiot — what a ruffian I 
have been to you,” said Sir Allan, lifting his wife’s hand 
to his lips. What shall I do to atone for my brutality?” 

‘‘ Get well and strong as fast as ever you can, dearest, 
and let us start upon that delicious journey to the Italian 
lakes. And — yes — there is one other favor I should like 
to ask you.” 

Tlmre is nothing you can ask, love, which I will not 
grant.” 

I think, Allan, when we come back to Darnel it 
would be better for your sister to find a home elsewhere. 
I do not believe that she and I can ever be quite happy 


158 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


and at ease under tlie same roof, for I have an idea that 
she detests me.” 

And upon my honor, Clare, I believe you are right. 
My sister was a very good sister as long as there was no rival 
to dispute or share her influence; but she is fond of power. 
She was proud of her position as mistress of Darnel Park, 
and she has never honestly forgiven me for marrying 
again. I believe that in a ladydike way she has contrived 
to prejudice a good many of my old friends against my new 
wife. She shall find another home, Clare. You and I 
will have nothing but sunshine in our domestic lives. You 
don’t mind Grace, do you? Grace is devoted to you?” 

And I am devoted to Grace. I shall be very sorry 
when we are obliged to part with her. Oh, Allan, while 
we are still alone, tell me that you can forgive the trouble 
I have brought upon you through my unhappy son — poor 
Grace’s entanglement — that terrible wound which has im- 
periled this dear life. If you had never known me these 
things might not have happened.” 

If I had never known you I should have missed know- 
ing true happiness. We must take the sour with the sweet, 
the thorns with the roses, dear love. Life is made so. 
As for Grace, she is a fine, impulsive creature, created to 
get into mischief of sonie kind in the flush of youth and 
folly, like a roe caught in a thicket. And she might 
have met your scampish son in the Louvre all the same ^ 
had I never met you.” 

‘‘ Hardly, Allan, for it was your money that gave him 
the means of living in Paris.” 

‘^Here comes the colonel,” said Sir Allan. 

Grace came gayly into the sick-room, bringing her In- 
dian warrior, whose fine, benevolent countenance beamed 
with kindly feeling. 

]\ly dear Allan, this is a change for the better. Lady 
Darnel, I congratulate you,” ho said, as he sunk into the 
chair which Grace wheeled forward to the hearth. 
was very sorry to leave Darnel while you w'ere in such a 
critical state ; but I had some particular business in 
town — ” 

You can speak before father and mother; they know 
everything about Monsieur de Oamillao.” 

I am very glad of that, Grace. First and foremost, 
then, there are your letters,” said the colonel, handing her 


CUT BY THE COUls’TY. 


159 


a sealed packet. You can count them by and bye, and 
see if they are all right. And there is a letter from the 
young man, whose name is no more Oamillac than it is 
Stukely.” 

Grace knows his real name now,” said Clare. 

The deuce slie does!” cried the colonel. ‘^It’s more 
than I do, for I believe the fellow has half a dozen aliases. 
However, Grace knew the man as Oamillac and as Cam il- 
iac he writes to lier, renouncing all claim upon her, ac-* 
knowledging that lie was altogether unworthy of her 
girlish confidence, and that he obtained her promise under 
false iiretenses. The letter was written on board the 
‘Orizaba,’ bound for New Zealand, where I have dis- 
patched our young friend under the care of a doctor who 
is going to settle in the colony and who will look after 
Mr. Oamillac and set him on his legs when he gets out 
there. If there is any capacity for reform in the man he 
will have a fair chance of redemption,” 

“God grant that he may take advantage of* it,” ex- 
claimed Clare; “ Oh, Colonel Stukely, how can I ever 
be grateful enough to you for this good work?” 

“ You?” said the colonel, looking puzzled. 

“Ah, you do not understand yet. You have not been 
told all. The service done for Grace is a tenfold boon to 
me. The man you have tried to rescue is my son, Valen- 
tine Stuart Mackenzie. If you have indeed saved him — ” 

“If he had been my own son I could not have done 
anything better for him.” 

“And you have taken all this trouble, you have spent 
a great deal of money,” began Lady Darnel, but the 
colonel interrupted her. 

“ Don’t talk about the money. The whole business 
has cost very little more than a luindred so far. And 
that reminds me that I have some money of yours in my 
pocket-book, Allan, just half of the notes which Lady 
Darnel’s son took in his mad fit. The other half fell into 
the clutches of Jaker and his brood, who robbed him while 
he was under the influence of delirium tremens. Don’t 
be unhappy, I4dy Darnel, the fit was over before we put 
him on board the ‘ Orizaba,’ and my friend the doctor 
will look after him throughout the voyage. The ‘ Ori- 
zaba’ is a sailing vessel. The passage will last long 
enough for a perfect cure, if my friend Feron is as firm 


160 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 


as I believe he will be. I put the case in his hands as an 
interesting experiment. ‘ Here is a young man organically 
sound, good-looking, well made, well born, well bred, 
given over to the demon drink. I give him into your cus- 
tody, out of reach of temptation, for the steward and 
captain will work with you for his welfare. You can have 
him all to yourself for the next two months. If there is 
any virtue in your science you ought to be able to cure 
him.’ And Feron declared that he would cure him.” 

Clare gave the colonel her hand. 

You have brought me comfort and hope,” she said 
fervently. '^You are a noble-hearted man. Colonel 
Stukely, worthy to be my husband’s friend.” 

You can give me no higher praise than that.” 

Grace had opened the packet and looked over her letters. 
Yes, they were all there, the poor little school-girl notes, 
written in the most Britannic French, with much recourse 
to grammar and dictionary; the letters written later from 
Darnel, -in a freer style, and a little more Gaelic, but 
abounding in wrong genders and impossible tenses. She 
glanced through the collection, blushing as she looked, 
and then knelt down on the hearthrug and threw them 
behind the burning logs. What a merry blaze they made. 
AVhile the flames went roaring up the wide old chimney, 
she turned to her godfather, half in tears and half in 
mirthfulness. 

You have done something more for me than teach me 
my catecliism and the ten commandments in the vulgar 
tongue,” she said. ‘‘ You have rescued me from a great 
difficulty.” 

Perhaps if I had been in the way to teach you the 
ten commandments, laying particular stress upon the 
fifth, you might never have ^ot into that difficulty, my 
poor Gracie.” 

No; if I had honored my father as I ought to have 
done, I should never have engaged myself to a French art 
student without his knowledge,” said Gracie, and then, 
with a touch of pretty rebelliousness, she added: “But 
then he ought never to have sent me to school. That was 
the beginning of the eyil.” 

“ That was Aunt Dora’s doing,” said Sir Allan. “ The 
school was her advice.” 

“I hate people who are always giving advice,” ex- 


CUT BY THE COUNTY. 161 

claimed Grace. A thing that costs nothing, and which 
nobody wants.’’. 

How happy they were, sitting round the cozy hearth in 
the spacious old room which Wren had planned for just 
such family uses. Four people sitting round the fire in 
the average modern bed-chamber would be a crowd; but 
here there was room enough for twenty. They sat round 
the fire talking for the next hour, and almost forgot that 
Sir Allan was still an invalid, till the family doctor came 
in and reproved them severely all round, including the 
patient. 

I said you were to sit up for an hour or so, and you 
liave been up at least four hours,” he expostulated. 

The other three hours went under the head of ^ or so,’ ” 
replied Sir Allan. It was a vague expression on your 
part which I took to have a liberal meaning. Don’t be 
frightened, Danvers, I never felt better in my life, and I 
am going to eat one of those partridges which you have 
been pressing upon me as persistently as Louis the 
Fourteenth upon his confession. I am going to eat a 
partridge and drink a tumbler of Heidseck ‘ to my supper,’ 
as old-fashioned people say.” 

“Upon my soul, I believe you have been taking Heid- 
seck already,” said the doctor, “ for you are as merry as 
a grig — and you have been all in the dolefuls till to-day.” 

“The tide has turned, doctor,” said Sir Allan. “You 
shall see how fast a man of forty-five can get well when he 
is surrounded by those he loves.” 

Before the end of November Sir i^llan was well enough 
to start for the South. The day before he left Darnel 
Park he had a decisive interview with his half-sister,' 
during which he made it clear to Dora Darnel that her 
place was no longer under the same roof that sheltered 
lier brother’s wife. 

“I do not understand in what manner T have offended 
Lady Darnel,” said Dora, with an air of ill-used inno- 
cence. I have absolutely slaved in my desire that 
everything in this house should be as near perfection as 
possible. If Lady Darnel had any experience of a large 
establishment she would be better able to appreciate the 
trouble I have taken in her behalf.” 

“ Lady Darnel is not unappreciative, Dora. She has 
a great admiration for your talents as a housekeeper, so 


1G2 


OUT BY THE COUNTY. 


great, in fact, that her ambition has been aroused by your 
example, and she would like, when we come back, to try 
her hand at housekeeping on her own account, so I shall 
be glad if 3 ^ou will plan your future life while we are away. 
I am sure we shall all be excellent friends at a distance.’^ 

Dora paled to the lips, and the hand that played with 
her watch-chain was faintly tremulous; but she main- 
tained her dignity as she replied: 

I am deeply grateful to you for my release, Allan. 
Residence under Lady Darnel’s roof has long been painful 
to me. My own wants are of the simplest. My poor little 
income will enable me to live in London, and in an intel- 
lectual atmosphere, where I hope I shall not be misunder- 
stood as I have been here.” 

You must allow me to double your income, as I have 
always intended if ever we came to live apart,” said 
Allan, kindly. 

Dora protested against the idea, but there was that in 
her protestation which assured Sir Allan that she would 
not be inflexible. 

Clara and Grace both left Darnel with lighter heaits 
because of the knowledge that they would not And Miss 
Darnel installed there on their return. That pernicious 
influence would be taken out of their lives forever. 

I can never forget that it was Aunt Dora who sent 
me to school,” said Grace, in her confidential talk with 
her step-mother, while Sir Allan slept peacefully on the 
other side of the railway carriage which was taking them 
to Genoa. She is the only person who ever parted me 
from my father.” 

‘‘But I believe there is one other person who has the 
same malicious intention, Grace,” answered Lady Darnel, 
smiling at her. “ If Mr. Colchester comes to spend 
Christmas at Venice -with us, as he threatens, I fancy it 
will be with the hope of persuading you to exchange Dar- 
nel Park for the manor before long.” 

“He is a most persistent young man,” said Grace, 
blushing. “I hope it won’t bore you to have him in 
Venice.” 

“ I shall be delighted to have him. He has Tilways 
been my friend. He has never looked coldly down upon 
me as other people have done at Darnel.” 

“ I believe that coldness was mostly Aunt Dora’s fault,” 


CUT BY THU COUNTY. 


163 


said Grace, and slie was right, for on Lady DarneLs re- 
turn to lier husband’s house in the spring, and upon the 
announcement of Grace’s engagement to Edward Col- 
chester, people who had held themselves somewhat aloof 
before, hastened to Darnel to offer their congratulations 
upon that pleasant event, and somehow before the year was 
out the neighborhood began to understand that Lady Dar- 
nel was a really charming person, and that Sir Allan was 
altogether fortunate in his second marriage. 

Sir Allan’s second wife received such tardy attentions 
somewhat coldly, and did not by any means fling herself 
into the newly opened arms of the neighborhood, but 
Grace’s marriage, which took place early in August, 
brought about festivities and visitings that necessarily 
drew Lady Darnel into county society. She stinted no 
splendors or hospitalities that beseemed the marriage of 
her husband’s daughter and heiress with a man of wealth 
in the neighborhood, and she bore herself at all these fes- 
tivities with a quiet dignity which impressed even the 
doubters. 

“ Whatever she may have been in the past, she must 
always have been a lady,” said that pleasant old Lady 
Scattercash, who had lived every hour of her life in Lon- 
don and Paris, before she took to wearing poke bonnets 
and holding mothers’ meetings in Wiltshire; ‘‘and that is 
the main point after all. We don’t want to pry into 
people’s past lives, but we can not receive ci-devant bar- 
maids or ballet girls.” 

Lady Darnel is so completely happy in her husband’s 
love, and in the perfect confidence now established be- 
tween them, that she can aiford to be very indifferent to 
the opinions of the county. She has received cheering 
news from New Zealand, where Stuart Mackenzie has 
been behaving well and winning friends. 


THE END. 


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214 Put Yourself in His Place. By 

Charles Reade 20 

215 Not Like Other Girls. By Rosa 

Nouchette Carey 20 

216 Foul Play. By diaries Reade. 20 

217 Tlie Man She Cared For. By 

F. W. Robinson 20 

218 Agnes Sorel. By G. P. R. James 20 

219 Lady Clare; or. The Master of 

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220 Which Loved Him Best? By 

the author of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

221 Coinin’ Thro’ the Rye. By 

Helen B. Mathers 20 

222 The Sun-IMaid. By Miss Grant 20 

223 A Sailor’s Sweetheart. By W. 

Clark Russell 20 

^24 The Arundel Motto. Mary Cecil 

Hay 20 

225 The Giant’s Robe. ByF. Anstey 20 
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227 Nancy. By Rhoda Broughton. 20 

228 Princess Napraxine. By ” Oui- 

da” ... 20 

229 Maid, Wife, or Widow? By 

Mrs. Alexander 10 

230 Dorothy Forster. By Walter 

Besanc 20 

2.31 Griffith Gaunt. Charles Reade 20 
232 Love and ]\loney ; or, A Perilous 

Secret. By Charles Reade. . . lO 
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Answered. Wilkie Collins.... 20 

231 Barbara; or, Splendid Misery. 

Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

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Mend.” By Charles Reade. . . 20 

236 Which Shall It Be? Mrs. Alex- 

ander 20 

237 Repented at Leisure. By the 

author of ” Dora Thorne ”... 20 

238 Pascarel. By “Ouida” 20 

239 Signa. By “Ouida ” 20 

240 Called Back. By Hugh Conway 10 

241 The Baby's GraiKluioLher. B}" 

I.. B. Walford 10 

212 The 4'wo Orphans ByD’Ennery 10 

213 Tom Burke of “Ours.” First 

half. By Charles Lever 20 

243 Tom Burke of “ Ours.” Second 

half. By Charles Lever 20 

244 A Great Mistake. By the author 

of “ His Wedded Wife ” 20 

215 Miss Tommy, and In a House- 
Boat. By* Miss Mulock 10 

246 A Fatal Dower. By the author 

of ” His Wedded Wife ” 10 

247 The Armourer’s Prentices. By 

Charlotte M. Yonge 10 

248 The House on the Marsh. F. 

Warden 10 

249 “ Prince Charlie’s Daughter.” 

By author of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

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ana’s Discipline. By the au- 
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251 The Daughter of the Stars, and 

Other Tales. By Hugh Con- 
way, author of “Called Back” 10 

252 A Sinless Secret. By “ Rita ”. . 10 
2.53 The Amazon By Carl Vosmaer 10 
254 The Wife’s Secret, and Fair but 

False. By the author of 


“Dora Thorne” lO 

255 The lilystery. By Mrs. Henry 

Wood 20 

256 Mr. Smith: A Part of His Life. 

By L. B. Walford 20 


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257 Beyond Recall. By Adeline Ser- 

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258 Cousins. By L. B. Walford 20 

259 The Bride of Monte-Cristo. (A 

Sequel to “ The Count of 
]\Ionte-Cnsto.” By Alexander 

Dumas 10 

2G0 Proper Pride. By B. M. Croker 10 

201 AFair Maid. ByF. W. liol)insoii 20 

202 Tlie Count of Monte-Cristo. 

Parti By Alexander Dumas 20 
202 Tlie Count of Monte Cristo. 

Part II. By Alexander Dumas 20 
268 An Islunaelite. By Miss M. E. 


Braddou 20 

264 Piddouclie, A French Detective. 

By Fortund Du Boisgobey . . . . 10 

265 Judith Shakespeare : Her Love 

Affairs and Other Adventures. 

By William Black 20 

266 The Water-Babies. A Fairy Tale 

for a Land-Baby. By the Rev. 
Charles Kingsley 10 

267 Laurel Vane; or, The Girls’ 

Conspiracy. By JIrs. Alex. 
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268 Lady, Gay’s Pride; or. The 

Miser's Treasure. By ■ Mrs. 
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269 Lancaster s Clioice. By Mrs. 

Alex. McVeigh JIillei\ 20 

270 The Wandering Jew. Part I. 

By Eugene Sue 20 

270 The Wandering Jew. Part tt. 

By Eugene Sue 20 

271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part I. 

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271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part II. 

By Eugene Sue 20 

272 The Little Savage. By Captain 

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273 Love and Mirage ; or, The Wait- 

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274 Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, 

Princess of Great Britain and 
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275 The Three Brides. Charlotte M. 

Ypnge 10 

276 Under the Lilies and Roses. By 

Florence Marryat (Mrs. Fran- 
cis Lean) 10 

21'7 The Surgeon’s Daugliters. By 
Mrs. Heiny Wood. A Man of 
His Word. By W. E. Norris. 10 

278 For Life and T^ove. By Alison. 10 

279 LittieGoldie. Mrs. Sumner Hay- 


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280 Omnia Vanitas. A Tale of So- 

ciety. By Mrs. P'orrestei . . ... 10 

281 The Squire's Legacy. By Mary 

Cecil Hay 20 

282 Donal Grant. By George Mac- 

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283 The Sin of a Lifetime. , By the 

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284 Doris. By “ The Duchess ” .. 10 




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285 The Gambler’s Wife 

286 Deldee ; or, The Iron Hand 

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287 At War With Herself. By the 

author of “ Dora Thorne ”... 10 

288 From Gloom to Sunlight. By 

the author of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

289 John Bull's Neighbor in Her 

True Light. By a “Brutal 
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290 Nora’s Love Test. By Mary Cecil 

Hay oQ 

291 Love’s Warfare. By the author 

of “Dora Thorne” 10 

292 A Golden Heart. By the author 

of “Dora Thorne” lo 

293 The Shadow of a Sin. By the 

author of “ Dora Thorne ”.. . 10 

294 Hilda. B.y the author of “ Dora 

Thorne” lo 

295 A Woman’s War. By the author 

of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

296 A Rose in Thorns. By the au- 

thor of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

297 Hilary’s Folly. By the author 

of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

298 Mitchelhurst Place. By Marga- 

ret Veley lO 

299 The Fatal Lilies, and A Bride 

from the Sea. By the author 
of “Dora Thorne” 10 

300 A Gilded Sin, and A Bridge of 

Love. By the author of “ Dora 
Thorne ” lO 

301 Dark Days. By Hugh Couwa3^ 10 

302 The Blatchford Bequest. By 

Hugh Conway 10 

303 Ingledew House, and More Bit- 

ter than Death. By the author 
of “ Dora Thorne” 10 

304 In Cupid’s Net. By the author 

of “ Dora, 9’horne ” - . 10 

305 A Dead Heart, and Lady Gwen- 

doline's Dream. By the au- 
thor of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

306 A Golden Dawn, and Love for a 

Day. By the author of “ Dora 
Thorne ’’ 10 

307 Two Kisses, and Like No Other 

Love. Bj" the author of “ Dora 
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308 Beyond Pardon 20 

309 The Pathfinder. By J. Feni- 

moi e Cooper 20 

310 The Prairie. By J. Feniniore 

Cooper 20 

311 Two Years Before the Mast. By 

R. H. Dana. Jr 20 

312 A "Week in Killa.i‘uey. By “The 

Duchess” 10 

313 The Lover's Creed. By Mrs. 

Cashel Hoey 20 

314 Peril. By Jessie Fothergill 20 

315 The Mistletoe Bougli. Edited 

by Miss M. E. Bi-addon 20 

316 Sworn to Silence ; or. Aline Rod- 

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317 By Mead and Stream. Charles 

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318 The Pioneers; or, The Sources 

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319 Face to Face : A Fact in Seven 

Fables. By R. E. Francillon. 10. 

330 A Bit of Human Nature. Bj^ 

David Christie Murray 10 

331 The. ProdiguLs: And Their In- 

heritance. By BIi'S. Oliphant 10 

333 A Woman’s Love-Story 10 

33;l A Willful Maid 20 

334 In Luck at Last. By Walter 

Besant 10 

325 The Portent. By George Mac- 

donald 10 

326 Phantastes. A Faerie Romance 

for Men and Women. By 
George Macdonald 10 

337 Raymond’s Atonement. (From 

the German of E. Werner.) 

By Christina Tyrrell 20 

338 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner. By 

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328 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner. By 

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329 The Polish Jew. ByErckmann- 

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330 May Blossom ; or. Between Two 

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331 Gerald. By Eleanor C. Price.. 20 

333 Judith Wynne. A Novel 20 

3^ Frank Fairlegh ; or, Scenes 

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334 A Marriage of Convenience. B3’ 

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335 The White Witch. A Novel.. . . 20 

336 Philistia. By Cecil Power 20 

337 Memoirs and Resolutions of 

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338 The Family Difficulty. By Sarah 

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339 Mrs. Vereker’s Courier Maid. 

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340 Under Which King? By Comp- 

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341 Madolin Rivers; or. The Little 

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343 The Baby, and One New Year’s 
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343 The Talk of the Town. By 

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344 “ The Wearing of the Green.” 

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345 Madam. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 

346 Tumbledown Farm. By Alan 

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347 As Avon Flows. By Henry Scott 

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348 From Post to Finish. A Racing 

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350 Diana of the Cyossways. By 

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351 The House on the Moor. By 

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352 At Any Cost. By Edward Gar- 

rett 10 

353 The Black Dwarf, and A Leg- 

end of Montrose. By Sir Wal- 
ter Scott 20 

854 The Lottery of Life. A Story 
of New York Twenty Years 
Ago. By John Brougham... 20 

355 That Terrible Man. By W. E 

Norris. The Princess Dago- 
mar of Poland. By Heinrich 
Felbermann 10 

356 A Good Hater. By Frederick 

Boyle 20 

357 John. A Love Story. By Mrs. 

Oliphant 20 

358 W'ithin the Clasp. By J. Ber- 

wick Harwood 20 

359 The Water-Wijch. By J. Feni- 

more Cooper 20 

360 Ropes of Sand. By R. E! Fran- 

cillon 20 

361 The Red Rover. A Tale of the 

Sea. B3 - j. Fenimore Cooper 20 

362 The Bride of Lammermoor. 

By Sir Walter Scott 20 

363 The Surgeon’s Daughter. By 

Sir Walter Scott 10 

364 Castle Dangerous. By Sir Wal- 

ter Scott 10 

865 George Christy; oi* The Fort- 
unes of a Minstrel. By Tony 

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366 The Mysterious Hunter; or, 
The Man of Death. By Capt. 

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367 Tie and Trick. By Hawley Smart 20 

368 The Southern Star ; or. The Dia- 

mond Land. By Jules Verne 20 

369 Miss Bretherton. 'Ey Mrs. Hum- 

phry Ward 10 

370 Lucy Crofton. By Mrs. Oliphant 10 

371 Margaret Maitland. Bj" Mrs. Oli- 

phant 20 

372 Phyllis’ Probation. By the au- 

thor of ” His Wedded Wife 10 

373 Wing-and-Wing. J. Fenimore 

Oooper 20 

374 The Dead Man’s Secret ; or, The 

Adventures of a Medical Stu- 
dent. By Dr. Jupiter Paeon.. 20 

375 A Ride to Khiva. By Capt. Fred 

Burnab3% of the Ro3’al Horse 


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376 The Crime of Christmas-Day. 

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377 Magdalen Hepburn; A Story 

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381 The Red Cardinal. By Frances 

Elliot 10 

382 Three Sisters; or, Sketches of 

a Highly Original Family. 

By Elsa D’Esterre-Keeling. .. 10 

383 Introduced to Society. By Ham- 

ilton Aid6 10 

384 On Horseback Through Asia 

Minor. Capt. Fred Burnaby. 20 

385 The Headsman; or, TheAbbaye 

des Vignerons. By J. Feni- 


more Cooper 20 

386 Led Astray ; or, “La Petite Comt- 

esse.” By Octave Feuillet.. . 10 

387 The Secret of the Cliffs. By 

Charlotte French 20 


388 Addie’s Husband ; or. Through 

Clouds to Sunshine. By the 
aiUhor of “ Love or Lands?” 10 

389 Ichabod. By Bertha Thomas... 10 

390 Mildred Trevanion. By “ The 

Duchess” 10 

391 The Heart of Mid-Lothian, By 

Sir Walter Scott 20 

392 Peveril of the Peak. By Sir Wal- 

ter Scott 20 

393 The Pirate, By Sir Walter Scott 20 

394 The Bravo. By J. Fenimore 

Cooper 20 

395 The Archipelago on Fire. By 

Jules Verne 10 

396 Robert Ord’s Atonement. By 

Rosa Nouchette Carey 20 

397 Lionel Lincoln ; or. The Leaguer 

of Boston. By J. Feiiimore 
Cooper 20 

398 Matt: A Tale of a Caravan. 

By Robert Buchanan 10 

399 Miss Brown. By Vernon Lee. .^20 

400 The Wept of Wisli-Ton-Wish. 

By J. Fenimoi’e Cooper 20 

401 Waverle)^ By Sir Walter Scott 20 

402 Lilliesleaf; or. Passages in the 

Life of Mrs. Mai’garet l\Iait- 
land of Sunnyside. By Mrs. 
Olipliaut ' 20 

403 An English Squire. C. R. Cole- 

ridge 20 

404 In Durance Vile, and Other 

Stories. By “ The Duchess ”. 10 
•i05 My Friends and I. Edited by 
Julian Sturgis 10 

406 The Merchant’s Clerk. By Sam- 

uel Warren 10 

407 Tylney Hall. By Thomas Hood 20 

408 Lester’s Secret. By Mary Cecil 

Hay 20 

409 Roy’s Wife. By G. J. Whyte- 

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410 Old Lady Mary. By Mrs. Oli- 

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411 A Bitter Atonement. By Char- 

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412 Some One Else. By B. M. Croker 20 

413 Afloat and Ashore. By J. Feni- 

more Cooper 20 

414 Miles Wallingford. (Sequel to 

“ Afloat and Ashore.”) By J. 
Fenimore Cooper. 20 

415 The Ways of the Hour. By J. 

Fenimore Cooper 20 

416 Jack Tier ; or. The Florida Reef. 

By J. Fenimore Cooper 20 

417 The Fair Maid of Perth ; or, St. 

Valentine’s Day. By Sir Wal- 
ter Scott 20 

418 St. Ronan’s Well. By Sir Wal- 

ter Scott 20 

419 The Chainbearer ; or. The Little- 

page Manuscripts. By J. 
Fenimore Cooper 20 

420 Sataustoe; or. The Littlepage 

Manuscripts, By J. Fenimore 
Cooper 20 

421 The Redskins; or, Indian and 

Injin. Being the conclusion 


of The Littlepage Manu- 
scripts. J. Fenimore Cooper 20 

422 Precaution. J.Fenimore Cooper 20 

423 The Sea-Lions; or. The Lost 

Sealers. J. Fenimore Cooper 20 

424 Mercedes of Castile; or. The 

Voyage to Cathay. By J, 


Fenimore Cooper 20 

425 The Oak Openings ; or. The Bee- 

Hunter. J. Fenimore Cooper. 20 

426 Venus’s Doves. By Ida Ash- 

worth Taylor 20 

427 The Remarkable History of Sir 

Thomas Upmore, Bart., M.P., 
formerly known as “ Tommy 
Upmore.” R. D. Blackmore. 20 

428 Z^i'o : A Stoiy of Monte-Carlo. 

By Mrs. Campbell Praed 10 

429 Bouldei stone; or. New Men and 

Old Populations. By Wiliam 
Sime 10 

430 A Bitter Reckoning. By the 

author of “By Crooked Paths” 10 

431 The Monikins. B}^ J. Fenimore 

Cooper 20 

432 The Witch’s Head. By H. Rider 

Haggard 20 

433 My Sister Kate. By Chaidotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne,” and A Rainy June. 

By “ Ouida ” 10 

434 Wyllaril’s Weird. By Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

435 Klytia: A Story of Heidelberg 

Castle, By George Taylor.. . . 20 

436 Stella. By Fanny Lewald 20 

437 Life and Adventures of Martin 

Chuzzlewit. By Charles Dick- 
ens. First half 20 

437 Life and Adventures of Martin 
Chuzzlewit. By Charles Dick- 
ens. Second half. 20 


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438 Found Out. Helen B. Mathei'S. 10 

439 Gre'&,t Expectations. By Clias. 

Dickens 20 

440 Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings. By 

Charles Dickens 10 

441 A Sea Change. Flora L. Shaw. 20 

442 Uanthorpe. By George Henry 

Lewes 20 

443 The Bachelor of 1’he Albany. . . 10 

444 The Heart of Jane Warner. By 

Florence Marryat 20 

445 The Siiadow of a Crime. By 

Plan Caine '... 20 

410 Dame Durden. By “Rita” 20 

447 American Notes. By Charles 

Dickens 20 

448 Pictures From Italy, and The 

Mud fog Papers, &c. By Chas. 
Dickens ..20 

449 Peeress and Player. By Flor- 

ence IMarryat 20 

450 Godfrey Helstone. ByGeorgiana 

M. Craik 20 

451 Market Harborough, and Inside 

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452 In the West Countrie. By May 

Crommelin 20 

453 The Lottery Ticket. By F. Du 

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454 The Mystery of Edwin Drood. 

By Charles Dickens 20 

455 Lazarus in London. By F. W. 

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450 Sketches by Boz. Illustrative of 
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457 The Russians at the Gates of 

Herat. By Charles Marvin. .. JIO 

458 A Week of Passion ; or, The Di- 

lemma of Mr. George Barton 
the Younger. By Edward Jen- 


kins 20 

459 A Woman’s Temptation. By 

Charlotte M. Braeme, author 
of “Dora Thorne” 20 

460 Under a Shadow. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne” 20 

461 His Wedded Wife. By author 

of “ Ladybird’s Penitence ”. . 20 

462 Alice’s Adventures in Wonder- 

land. By Lewis Carroll. With 
forty-two illustrations by 
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463 Redgauntlet. Sir Walter Scott. 20 

464 The Newcornes. By Wm. Make- 

peace Thackeray. Parti 20 

464 The Newcornes. By Wm. Make- 

peace Thackeray. Part II 20 

465 The Earl’s Atonement. By Char- 

lotte ]\I. Braeme, author of 
“ Dora Thorne ” 20 

466 Between Two Loves. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“ Dora Thorne ” 20 

467 A Struggle for a Ring. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“ Dora Thorne ” 20 


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468 The Fortunes, Good and Bad, 

of a Sewing-Girl. By Char- 
lotte M. Stanley 10 

469 Lady Darner’s Secret. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
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470 Evelyn’s Folly. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “Dora 
Thorne” 20 

471 Thrown on the World. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“Dora Thorne” 20 

472 The Wise Women of Inverness. 

By William Black 10 

473 A Lost Son. By Mary Linskill. 10 

474 Serapis. By George Ebers 20 

475 The Prima Donna’s Husband. 

By F. Du Boisgobey 20 

476 Between Two Sins. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“ Dora Thorne ” 10 

477 Affinities. A Romance of To- 

day. By Mrs. Campbell Praed. 10 

478 Diavola; or, Nobody’s Daughter 

By MissM. E.'Braddon. Parti. 20 

478 Diavola; or, Nobody’s Daughter 

By’^MissM. E. Braddon. Part II. 20 

479 Louisa. Katharines. Macquoid 20 

480 Married in Haste. Edited by 

Miss AI, E. Braddon 20 

481 The House thafrJack Built. By 

Alison . 10 

482 A Vagra nt Wife. By F. Warden 20 

483 Betwixt My Love and Ale. By 

the author of “A Golden Bar” 10 

484 Although He Was a Lord, and 

Other Tales. Airs. Forrester. 10 

485 Tinted Vapours. By J. Alaclaren 


Cobban 10 

486 Dick’s Sweetheart. By “The 

Duchess” 20 

487 Put to the Test. Edited bj’^ Miss 

AI. E. Braddon 20 

488 Joshua Haggard’s Daughter. 

By Aliss Al. E. Braddon 20 

489' Rupert Godwin. By Aliss AI. E. 

Braddon 20 

490 A Second Life. Airs. Alexander 20 

491 Society in Loudon. By A For- 

eign Resident 10 

492 Aliguon; or. Booties’ Baby. By 

J. S. Winter. Illustrated 10 

493 Colonel Enderby’s Wife. By 

Lucas Alalet. 20 

494 A Alaiden All Forlorn, and Bar- 

bara. By “ The Duchess ”... 10 

495 Alouut Royal. By Aliss M. E. 

Braddon 20 

496 Only a Woman. Edited by Aliss 

AI. E. Braddon 20 

497 The Lady’s Mile. By Aliss AI. 

E. Braddon 20 

498 Only a Clod. By Aliss M. E. 

Braddon 20 

499 The Cloven Foot. By Aliss AI. 

E. Braddon 20 

500 Adrian Vidal. By W. E. Norris. 20 

.501 Mr. Butler’s Ward. By F. 

Alabel Robinson 20 - 


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50^ Carriston’sGift. By Hug:li Con- 
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503 The Tinted Venus. ByF. Austey 10 

504 Curly : An Actor s Story. By 

John Coleman. Illustrated. 

My Poor Wife. By the author 


of “ Addie's Husband ” 10 

505 Tl)e Society of London. By 

Count Paul Vasili '. 10 

506 Lady Lovelace. By the author 

of ■' Judith Wynne ” 20 

507 Chronicles of the Canongate, 

and Other Stories. By Sir 
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508 The Unholy Wish, by Mrs. 

Henry Wood, and The Girl at 
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509 Nell Haffenden. By Tighe 

Hopkins 20 

510 A Mad Love. By the author of 

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511 A Strange World. By Miss M. 

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512 The Waters of Hercules 20 

513 Helen AVhitney’s Wedding, and 

Other Tales. By Mrs. Heniy 
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514 The Mystery of Jessy Page, 

and Other Tales. By Mrs. 
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515 Sir Jasper’s Tenant. A Novel. 

By Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

516 Put Asunder ; or, Lady Castle- 

maioe’s Divorce. By Char- 
lotte M. Braeine, author of 
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517 A Passive Crime, and Other 

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518 The Hidden Sin. A Novel 20 

519 James Gordon’s Wife. A Novel. 20 

520 She's All the World to Me. By 

Hall Caine 10 

521 Entangled. E. Fairfax Byrrne 20 


NO. PH ICE. 

522 Zig-Zag, the Clown ; or. The 
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524 Strangers aTid Pilgrims. By 

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525 Paul A^argas. and Other Stories. 

By Hugh Conway, author of 
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527 The Days of My Life. Bj'^ Mrs. 

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528 At His Gates. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 
532 Arden Court. Barbara Graham. 20 
5-35 Henrietta’s AVish. A Tale. By 

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5-36 Dissolving A^iews. By Mrs. An- 
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537 Piccadilly. Laurence Oliphant 10 

538 A Fair Country Maid. B3’ E. 

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539 Silvermead. Jean Middlemas. 20 

540 At a High Price. E. AVerner. . . 20 

541 “As It Fell Upon a Day.” By 

“The Duchess,” and Uncle 
Jack. By AValter Besant 10 

543 A Family Affair. Hugh Con- 

way, author of “Called Back ” 20 

544 Cut by the County; or, Grace 

Darnel. Miss M. E. Braddon. 10 

545 Vida’s Story. By the author of 

“ Guilty Without Crime ” 10 


546 Mrs. Keith’s Crime, A Novel.. 10 

547 A Coquette’s Conquest. By Basil 20 

548 The Fatal Marriage, and The 


Shadow in the Corner. B3' 
Miss M. E. Braddon 10 

549 Dudley Carleon ; or, The Broth- 

er’s Secret, and George Caul- 
field’s Journey. Bj' Miss M. 

E. Braddon 10 

550 Struck Down. Hawley Smai t. . 10 

551 Barbara Heathcote's Trial. By 

Rosa Nouchette Carey ‘. 20 

5.55 Cara Roma. B3' Miss Grant 20 

556 A Prince of Darkness. Bj' F. 

AA^ai’den 20 


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PEESERVATIOIT AND INCREASE OF HEALTH AND BEAUTY. 

IT CONTAINS FULL DIRECTIONS FOR ALL THE 

ARTS AN.D MYSTERIES OF PERSONAL DECORATION, 

AND FOR 

Increasing the Natural Graces of Form and Expression. 

ALL THE LITTLE AFFECTIONS OF THE 

KCsiir, ZE3res eun<3L Bod.3r 

THAT DETRACT FROM APPEARANCE AND HAPPINESS 

Are Made the Subjects of Precise and Excellent Recipes. 

Ladies Are Instructed How to Reduce Tlielr Weiglit 

"Without -Injury to Health and- Without Producing 
Pallor and Weakness. 


NOTHHSTG NECESSARY TO 

A COMPLETE TOILET BOOK OF RECIPES 

AND 

VALUABLE ABVICE AND INFORMATION 

HAS BEEN OVERLOOKED IN THE COMPILATION OF THIS VOLUME 


For sale by all Newsdealers, or sent to any address on receipt of the price, 
postage prepaid, by the Publisher. 


MTJNRO’8 P-UBLICATI0N8. 


Old Sleuth Library 


A Series of the Most Thrillliig Detective Stories Ever Pabiished! 

No. 1. OliD SLEUTH THE DETECTIVE. 

A dashing romance, detailing In graphic style the hair-breadth escapes and thrill- 
ing adventures of a veteran agent of the law. 

No. ei. THE KING OF THE DETECTIVES. 

tn this story the shrewdness and cunning of a master mind are delineated In a fas 

clnating manner. 

No. 3.— OLD SLEUTH’S TRIUIUPll. 

IN TWO HAX.VES— 10 CENTS EACH. 

tha crowning triumph of the great detective’s active career Is reached after nnder' 
going many exciting perils and dangers. 

No. 4. — UNDER A MILLION DISGUISES. 

Hie many subterfuges by which a detective tracks his game to justice are all do* 
scribed In a graphic manner in this great story. 

No. 5. NIGHT SCENES IN NEW YORK. 

An absorbing story of life after dark in the great metropolis. All the various feat- 
ures of metropolitan life— the places of amusement, high and low life among 
night-hawks of Gotham, etc., are realistically described in this delightful story. 

No. 6. OLD ELECTRICITY, THE LIGHTNING DETECTIVE. 

Vor ingenuity of plot, quick and exciting succession of dramatic incidents, this 
great story has not an equal in the whole range of detective literature. 

No. 7, THE SHADOW DETECTIVE. 

IN TWO PARTS— 10 CENTS EACH. 

This thrilling story Is a masterpiece of entrancing fiction. The wonderful exploits 
and hatr-breadth escapes of a clever law-agent are all described in brilliant stylet 

No. 8. RED LIGHT WILL, THE RIVER DETECTIVE. 

In this splendid i*omance, lovers of the weird, exciting phases of life on the teem- 
ing docks and wharfs of a great city, will find a mine of thrilling Interest. 

No. 9. IRON BURGESS. THE GOVERNMENT DETECTIVE. 

The many sensational incidents of a detective’s life in chasing to cover the sharks 
who prey upon the revenue of the Govemmaut are all described in a fascinat- 
ing manner. The story will hold the reader spell-bound with interest from 
beginning to end. 

No. 10. THE BRIGANDS OF NEW YORK. 

This work Is a startling expose of the dangers of the v-reat metropolis, and brings 
to light many hitherto hidden crimes perpetrated by the criminals of the city. 

No. 11. TRACKED BY A VENTRILOQUIST. 

In this story the wonderful art of ventriloquism Is made to play a prominent part, 
and by Its aid many a miscarriage of justice Is avoided. 

No. Ii5. THE TWIN DETECTIVES. 

Through the wonderful congenital resemblance of the heroes, the scenes and Inci- 
dents of this story assume a weird effect, and the Interest Is unabated to the 
last line. 

No. 13. — THE FRENCH DETECTIVE. 

Those who are familiar with the work performed by Vldocq, Lecoq, and other em. 
Inent French officers, will find this book fully equal to anything written of them. 

No. 14. THE ST. LOUIS DETECTIVE. 

A tale of the great South-west, replete with all the stirring Incidents iieouUar to 

that section of the country. 


The above works are for sale by all newsdealers at 10 cents each, or will be tfwf 
to any address, postage paid, on receipt of 12 cents, by the publisher. 

GEOUGE MUNRO, Publisher, 

17 to 27 Yaudewater Streets Sf. 7. 


P.O.BOX87U. 


JUST ISSUED 


JULIET COBSON’S 

NEW FAMILY COOK BOOK. 

BY MISS JULIET CORSON, 

Author of “ Meals for the Milliou,” etc., etc. 
Superintendent op the New York School, of Cookery. 


FBICE; HANSSOIEELY EOUNE IN CLOTH, $1.00. 

A COMPLETE COOK BOOK 

For Family Use in City and Country. 

CONTAINING 

PRACTICAL RECIPES AND FULL AND PLAIN DIREC- 
TIONS FOR COOKING ALL DISHES USED 
IN AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS. 

The Best and Most Economical Methods of Cooking Meats, Fish, 
Veyretables, Sauces, Salads, Fuddingrs and Pies. 

Ilow to Prepare Relishes and Savory Accessories, Piclced-np Dishes, 
S ups, Seasoninsr, Stiifling: and Stews, 

How to Make Good Bread, Biscuit, Omelets, Jellies, Jams, Pan- 
cakes, Fritters and Fillets* 


Miss Corson is the best American writer on cooking. All of her recipes 
have been carefully tested in the New York School of Cookery. If her direc- 
tions are carefully followed there will be uo failures and no reason for com- 
plaint. Her directions are always plain, very complete, and easily followed. 

Juliet Corson’s New Family Cook Book 

Is sold by all newsdealers. It will be sent, postpaid, on receipt of price: 
handsomel 3 '^ bound in cloth, $1.00, by 

GEORGE MUNRO, Publisher, 

(P. O. Box 8751.) 17 to ‘jy Vandewater St., New York, 


THE 

New York Fashion Bazar. 

THE BEST AMEBICAN HOME MAGAZINE. 

Price ‘-45 Cents per Copy. Subscription Price $25.50 per Year, 


A HANDSOME chromo will be given free to every yearly subscriber to the 
New York Monthly Fashion Bazar whose name will be on our books when 
the Christmas number is issued. Persons desirous of availing themselves of 
this elegant present will please forward their subscription as soon as possible. 

The New York Fashion Bazar is a magazine for ladies. It contains 
everything which a lady’s magazine ought to contain. The fashions in dress 
which it publishes are new and reliable. Particular attention is devoted to 
fashions for children of all ages. Its plates and descriptions will assist every 
lady in the preparation of her wardrobe, both in making new dresses and re- 
modeling old ones. The fashions are derived from the best houses and are 
always practical as well as new and tasteful. 

Every lady reader of The New York Fashion Bazar can make her own 
dresses with the aid of Munro’s Bazar Patterns. These are carefully cut to 
measure and pinned into the perfect semblance of the garment. They are use- 
ful in altering old as well as in making new clothing. 

The Bazar Embroidery Supplements form an important part of the maga- 
zine. Fancy work is carefully described and illustrated, and new patterns 
given in every number. 

All household matters are fully and interestingly treated. Home informa- 
tion, decoration, personal gossip, correspondence, and recipes for cooking 
have each a department. 

Among its regular contributors are Mary Cecil Hay, “The Duchess,” 
author of “ Molly Bawn,” Lucy Randall Comfort, Charlotte M. Braeme, 
author of ‘‘Dora Thorne,” Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller, Mary E. Bryan, 
author of “ Manch,” and Florence A. Warden, author of “ The House on the 
Marsh.” 

The stories published in The New York Fashion Bazar are the best that 
can be had. 

We employ no canvassers to solicit subscriptions for The New York Fash- 
ion Bazar. All persons representing themselves as such are swindlers. 

The New York Fashion Bazar is for sale by all newsdealers, price 25 cents 
per copy. Subscription price $2.50 per year. Address 

GEORGE MUNRO, Publisher, 

17 to 27 Vandewater Street, N. Y", 


P. O. Box 3751 


THE CELEBRATED 



GRAND, SQUARE AND UPRIGHT PIANOS. 


FIRST PRIZE 

DIPLOMA. 


Centennial Exliibl- 
tion, 1876; Montreal, 
1881 and 1882. 


The enviable po- 
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solely due to the 
merits of their in- 
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ARE AT PRESENT THE MOST POPUEAR 

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SOHMER Sc CO., Manufacturers, No. 149 to 155 E. 14th Street, N. Y. 



FROM THE 
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BRAIN AND N0VS FOOD 


VITALIZED PHOSPHITES 


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nervous or mental disorders. It builds tip 
worn out nei'ves, banishes sleeplessness 
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good digestion. It restores the energy lost 
by nervousness, debility, or over-exliaust- 
ion : regenerates weakened vital powers. 


“ It amplifies bodily and mental power (o 
the present generation, and proves the sur- 
vival of the fittest to the next.”— Bismarck. 


“ It strengthens nervous power. It is the 
only medical relief I have ever known for 
an over-worked brain.”— Gladstone. 


“ I really iirire you to put it to the test.”- 
Miss Emily Faithful 


F. CROSBY CO., 56 W. 25th St, N. Y 


For sale by Druggists, or by mail Si. 


Munro’s Publications. 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY 


CLOTH EDITION. 
HANDSOMELY BOUND. 


CHARLES DICKENS’ WORKS. 

Mnrtlii Chiizzlewlt 50e 

David Copperfleld 60e 

Doinboy and Son 60o 

Nlcliola. NIokleby 50e 

Pk'kwiok Paper* 50o 

Rleak lIouKe AOc 

Our Mutual Friend 50o 


Allee’* Adventure* In Wonderland. Extra 
larite type. By Lewi* Carroll. With forty- 
two illu*tratioii* by John Teniiiel — 60c 


Any of Uir nbove works will be sent by mall, postpaid, 
on receipt of the price. Address 


GEOROE MUNRO, Publi*her, 


17 to ft7 Tandewater St., New York. 
P. O. Hox 3761. 




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